The Folded Earth

By: Anuradha Roy

Narrated by: Sneha Mathan

For Maya, a young widow trying to escape her complicated past, teaching school in a secluded mountain village offers a promise of peace. Here she feels close to the calm heart of the land, where lush foothills meet clear skies. In the evenings she teaches a peasant girl, Charu, to write so she can correspond with her lover in secret.

As Maya finds out, however, no refuge is remote enough to keep out the modern world, or her own past. The community she has grown to love comes under attack when powerful outsiders hijack the local elections, dividing the villagers and threatening Charu's family. And when Maya's landlord's charming nephew sets up shop nearby, Maya is drawn to him despite her better instincts - and soon finds herself questioning everything she has ever known.

©2011 Anuradha Roy (P)2012 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Critic reviews

"Gentle comedy, bitter tragedy, and grief intertwine in an affectionately delineated portrait of an Indian hill community.... [T]his understated, finely observed book expresses a haunting vision. A writer to watch." ( Kirkus Reviews)

"A perfect treat.... Roy brings her characters vividly and amusingly to life." ( Country and Town House magazine)

" The Folded Earth is pure pleasure, that old fashioned sort of novel in which one can immerse oneself; an absolute treat." ( Business World)

very fragmented until the last part

This story is to bouncy and fragmented until it comes together somewhat at the end. Too many subplots makes it almost confusing. But I love to listen to Sneha Mathan read.

Atmospheric Lyrical, Prose Saves a Thin Plot

This story appears to be largely an examination of a young widow's recovery from unfathomable grief. As such, the strength of the superimposed plot ebbs and flows, much like grief, and also like grief, has a patchy, ill-defined and unsatisfying ending. It is also a series of well-drawn character studies of a village full of flawed, yet (mostly) sympathetic characters, the ones most closely surrounding the main character, Maya, making up an unlikely but caring adoptive family. In this aspect, the writer does better. It is also a sort of love letter to the landscape of the Himalayan foothills, a task for which the narrator's buttery voice is perfectly suited.

Not a great listen for people who need everything neatly tied up and spelled out, but worth your time if you like an introspective and realistic story about emerging from tragedy.