The acclaimed million-copy bestselling novel about a woman’s struggle to find happiness in a changing India.

Married as a child bride to a tenant farmer she had never met, Rukmani works side by side in the field with her husband to wrest a living from a land ravaged by droughts, monsoons, and insects. With remarkable fortitude and courage, she meets changing times and fights poverty and disaster.
 
This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life is a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loves—an unforgettable novel that “will wring your heart out” (Associated Press).

Includes an Introduction by Indira Ganesan
And an Afterword by Thrity Umrigar
Kamala Markandaya (1924–2004) was a pseudonym used by Indian author and journalist Kamala Purnaiya Taylor. Her first novel, Nectar in a Sieve, was a bestseller and an American Library Association Notable Book. Kamala went on to write a number of other works, including Some Inner Fury, The Golden Honeycomb, and Pleasure City. View titles by Kamala Markandaya

Educator Guide for Nectar in a Sieve

Classroom-based guides appropriate for schools and colleges provide pre-reading and classroom activities, discussion questions connected to the curriculum, further reading, and resources.

(Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

“Comparable in many ways to Cry, The Beloved Country...if anything...better.”—Saturday Evening Post

Nectar in a Sieve has a wonderful, quiet authority...without reticence or excess.”—Donald Barr, The New York Times
 
“A novel to retain in your heart.”—Milwaukee Journal

“Very moving.”—Harper’s Magazine

“An elemental book. It has something better than power, the truth of distilled experience.”—New York Herald Tribune
 
“Unique in poetic beauty, in classically restrained and controlled tragedy.”—Dorothy Canfield Fisher, noted author and critic
 
“A superb job in telling her story.”—The Christian Science Monitor

About

The acclaimed million-copy bestselling novel about a woman’s struggle to find happiness in a changing India.

Married as a child bride to a tenant farmer she had never met, Rukmani works side by side in the field with her husband to wrest a living from a land ravaged by droughts, monsoons, and insects. With remarkable fortitude and courage, she meets changing times and fights poverty and disaster.
 
This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life is a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loves—an unforgettable novel that “will wring your heart out” (Associated Press).

Includes an Introduction by Indira Ganesan
And an Afterword by Thrity Umrigar

Author

Kamala Markandaya (1924–2004) was a pseudonym used by Indian author and journalist Kamala Purnaiya Taylor. Her first novel, Nectar in a Sieve, was a bestseller and an American Library Association Notable Book. Kamala went on to write a number of other works, including Some Inner Fury, The Golden Honeycomb, and Pleasure City. View titles by Kamala Markandaya

Guides

Educator Guide for Nectar in a Sieve

Classroom-based guides appropriate for schools and colleges provide pre-reading and classroom activities, discussion questions connected to the curriculum, further reading, and resources.

(Please note: the guide displayed here is the most recently uploaded version; while unlikely, any page citation discrepancies between the guide and book is likely due to pagination differences between a book’s different formats.)

Praise

“Comparable in many ways to Cry, The Beloved Country...if anything...better.”—Saturday Evening Post

Nectar in a Sieve has a wonderful, quiet authority...without reticence or excess.”—Donald Barr, The New York Times
 
“A novel to retain in your heart.”—Milwaukee Journal

“Very moving.”—Harper’s Magazine

“An elemental book. It has something better than power, the truth of distilled experience.”—New York Herald Tribune
 
“Unique in poetic beauty, in classically restrained and controlled tragedy.”—Dorothy Canfield Fisher, noted author and critic
 
“A superb job in telling her story.”—The Christian Science Monitor

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