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Faint Promise of Rain: A Novel by [Anjali Mitter Duva]

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Anjali Mitter Duva

Faint Promise of Rain: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Anjali Mitter Duva (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.1 475 ratings

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Shortlisted for the 2016 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing

It is 1554 in the desert of Rajasthan. On a rare night of rain, a daughter is born to a family of Hindu temple dancers just as India’s new Mughal Emperor Akbar sets his sights on their home, the fortress city of Jaisalmer, and the other Princely States around it.

Fearing a bleak future, Adhira’s father, the temple’s dance master—against his wife and sons’ protests—puts his faith in tradition and in his last child for each to save the other: he insists that Adhira is destined to “marry” the temple’s deity and to give herself to a wealthy patron. Thus she must live in submission as a woman revered and reviled. But Adhira’s father may not have the last word. Adhira grows into an exquisite dancer, and after one terrible evening she must make a choice—one that will carry her family’s story and their dance to a startling new beginning.

Print length

301 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

She Writes Press
Publication date

October 7, 2014
File size

2182 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A compelling story of loss and valor that takes readers on an unexpected journey to the secret world of temple dancers in ancient India.”
—Shona Patel, author of Teatime for the Firefly

“Powerful and beautiful, Anjali Mitter Duva’s Faint Promise of Rain deftly balances faith and passion, fear and hope, destiny and will. Duva’s expert eye takes us to 16th century India where dance calls forth the divine and unforgettable characters give us ‘memories of things to come.’ Past, present, and future all overlap in a perfect timeless story.”
—Marjan Kamali, author of Together Tea

“Faint Promise of Rain gives an atmospheric, compassionate look into the hidden world of a temple dancer's family. Anjali Mitter Duva had me spellbound throughout this suspenseful coming of age novel that delivers a rich, satisfying ending.”
—Sujata Massey, author of The Sleeping Dictionary

“Faint Promise of Rain is a gorgeous book, a story that is at once spare and lush, wrenching and restoring. The characters are so fully realized, so keenly nuanced, that they linger with you long after the last page, like the sweet smell of a recent storm.”
—Bret Anthony Johnston, author of Remember Me Like This and Director of Creative Writing at Harvard University

About the Author

Anjali Mitter Duva is a writer who grew up in France and has family roots in Calcutta. She is a co-founder of Chhandika, an organization that teaches and presents India’s classical kathak dance. Anjali graduated from Brown University and completed her Master’s in city planning at MIT. She lives near Boston with her husband and two daughters. FAINT PROMISE OF RAIN is Anjali’s first novel. She is working on the second, set in 19th-century Lucknow. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00NE4HPBQ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ She Writes Press (October 7, 2014)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 7, 2014
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2182 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 301 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #1,201,625 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #5,834 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- #6,174 in Historical Literary Fiction
- #34,622 in Historical Fiction (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
4.1 475 ratings

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Anjali Mitter Duva

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Anjali Mitter Duva is an Indian American writer, editor, and project manager raised in France. She is the author of the bestselling historical novel FAINT PROMISE OF RAIN which was shortlisted for a William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. She was a 2018 Finalist for a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship. Anjali co-founded and runs the Arlington Author Salon, a quarterly literary series with a twist, is a Fiction Co-Editor at Solstice Literary Magazine, and an instructor at Grub Street Writers. She is also a co-founder of Chhandika, a non-profit organization that teaches and presents India's classical storytelling kathak dance. Anjali was educated at Brown University and MIT.

Find more at www.anjalimitterduva.com

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5

475 global ratings

5 star		39%
4 star		40%
3 star		16%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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S. Runge

Tremendous Debut

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 24, 2014

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Though many would (and have) used the adjective "exotic," about this novel, Duva gives the landscape and story, distant in time and place, an immediacy and energy that many novels set in contemporary America lack. Adhira is an interesting character; born during a rare rainstorm in a desert, she seems to be strength personified, even as a young girl. As her family disintegrates, owing to the brutally necessary silences that surround their precarious existence as temple dancers, she focuses on dance, and her skills give her sufficient space to survive in a difficult and changing world. Her brother, Hari Dev, is the most compelling character in the story. Suffering from a bad leg and a preternaturally agile mind--perhaps a little on the spectrum--, he is the one character who manages successfully to exert some control over his life and fate. From time to time the narrative choice (a kind of first-person omniscient) is a little confusing. (Perhaps Hari Dev's character is so compelling that one expects him to provide the voice.) At any rate, that's a minor flaw in an otherwise thoroughly engaging novel that confronts difficult truths with all senses.

10 people found this helpful

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Crystal K.

Beautiful, gorgeous tale -- a must read!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 7, 2014

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The world of 16th century India was admittedly foreign to me before I read Duva's gorgeous novel. That mattered little, however, because she's a master of drawing the reader into the world of her characters, the dance, and the changing area near the citadel of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. I can still picture the places--the temple, the modest home in which Adhira grows up, the desert camps, the market and citadel.

The novel and everything that happens within it center around Adhira, a mystical child who was born into a family of Hindu temple dancers, called devadasi. Ahdira embodies the dance and what it represents, but is also subject to the hard lessons of being tied to a wealthy patron. The book transcends the story of the temple, wrapping the reader in a story of family and how, just as with families today, the relationships between family members are sometimes tenuous, complex and fraught with both love and drama.

It's rare when I read a book that makes me care so deeply about so many characters. Faint Promise of Rain does that for me in spades. I felt Girija's worry and pain, Gandar's blind devotion and the folly of his choices, Hari Dev's struggle and his kind heart, Padmini's sadness and Mahendra's desire and disillusionment. I felt anger when bad things happened to the family, and deep conflict when they acted in ways that only hurt themselves. I wanted them to be loved, to succeed, to be happy. And Ahdira! I felt her magic weaving through me with every word.

These are characters I will remember and think about for many years to come. Duva's debut novel speaks volumes about her talent. I can't wait to read her next book!

18 people found this helpful

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andrew hockaday

Beautiful Rain

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 29, 2017

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The Beautiful Rain; can most humans even conceive of conditions where rain might come every five years? Of course, the weather and climate conditions has nothing to do with this book, but maybe it does. Hindu life and the concepts of it generate their on precepts of faith and all things inclusive. Although, I was intrigued with the story, the intellectual aspect seem to escape me. But, overall, the book was a good read, and seemed to have been well researched.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 28, 2017

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This novel was stunning in its elegance. I had no idea what to expect from a novel about 16th century India, but the first sentence absolutely drew me in and the entire story seduced me. Told from the point of view of Adhiri, a Hindu temple dancer, the novel is about her whole family--her father who is a teacher of dance, her mother who is mostly blind, her brother who longs to become a warrior, a second brother who is cast aside because of a limp, her sister who married well but is subject to her husband's temper--and the traditions to which they are bound. With a light touch of magical realism, the novel shows what life was like for women and the lack of options (for men as well!) in those days, yet the novel is hopeful. The issues are both historical and timeless.

I'm the type of person who normally skates over descriptions in a novel, but the writing was so lush and gorgeous, I drank every word in. Few novels have I been able to picture the characters and the settings so well. I knew nothing about the subject before reading it, yet the story flowed and I feel I learned about a part of the world I had never imagined before. A gorgeous novel. Simply gorgeous.

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Kindle Customer

Excellent story of love, intentions, belief

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 19, 2017

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I never try to review a book retelling the tale, especially if the book adds so much to my own internal approach to life.

Set in India and told through our heroine's eyes we receive a picture of her entire life, how her loved ones created it and are effected by it. Her family occupies a central position in the community and through them we also become witnesses to India's history at a period of time when Muslims invaded.

It is a beautiful novel tying so many elements on so many levels and a telling and peaceful conclusion is reached.

While I am not Indian I found I could identify with heart, lack of control in one's life while at the same time possessing confidence in the illusion of rightness and control. And as a woman I could understand the calling to rescue, protect and come up with creative solutions.

I thank the author for her contribution.

One person found this helpful

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peony

I'm glad I did because as I continued I realized what ...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 11, 2017

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I found this book difficult to get into at first. In fact I left it aside for quite some time before returning to it. I'm glad I did because as I continued I realized what a beautiful story it was. You empathized with the characters and felt saddened by the lives the Devadasis were forced into living.

Helpful

Shari Stauch

Enjoyed traveling to this far off place in a far ...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 19, 2016

Verified Purchase

Enjoyed traveling to this far off place in a far off time. Very clever narration (you'll see when you read) and fascinating characters that stick with you. Was disappointed there wasn't more as regards a few of them... and all my "favorites" seemed to be punished for their independent spirits. A read that will definitely provoke thought and discussion...

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer

I was entranced with this book and the imagery it conjured up. It has so much depth of feeling in it represented in so many way

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 26, 2017

Verified Purchase

Beautifully written, totally absorbing, captures your imagination and gives great insight into a different culture, and it's sometimes painful realities

Martin

A new meaning of dance

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 2, 2018

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Intriguing story line. Very thought provoking and an insight to a girls way of life we know nothing about.

RitaD

Marvellous read

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on May 31, 2019

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This story is so beautifully told, with delicacy and a real understanding of the characters, the importance of their lives, and of the dance. It was totally engrossing and made me feel that I was there. Can't wait for the author's next book.

shoestopper

A unique view of a different world

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 18, 2017

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed this tale of an unfamiliar world. It gripped me from the start, partly because it was so different. The author although setting this story in the middle of the sixteenth century seems to know what she is writing about. For myself, knowing none of the Hindu mythology which shapes all those legends for the dance, I did skip through the stories, The people and their lives were unique, from the dancing temple girls with their confined lives, to the naïve young man getting involved with nasty brigands while dreaming of fighting the Muslims in a desire for the life of a soldier, to the ageing couple and their simple and gentle lifestyles. In this case boy and girl are stymied from a normal life by the overriding forces of their culture in which another girl is ruined through no fault of her own. The story has a satisfying ending, however.

Kindle Customer

True storytelling and unique writing

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on January 18, 2017

Verified Purchase

Beautiful, intriguing and so foreign as to be almost magical. The devadasi are fascinating.
This is a spectacular debut from this author.

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