She Will Build Him a City (39 page)

It will then fall on us, you and me, both mothers, past and present, as it has fallen on all mothers since the first light of the first day, to make sure that Orphan always has a home. And that is why, once you wake up, we will build him a city.

Acknowledgements

My first and foremost debt is to
The Indian Express
. For providing me, since 1996, such incomparable employment – in the most free of newsrooms with the most passionate of storytellers. And, along with it, that rare freedom to drift away when there’s an extra tug in the wind.

Katharina Narbutovic, director, Berliner Kunstlerprogramm. For your precious gift: one year in Berlin for this book to grow and write. Cornelia Zetzsche, who showed me the way to Katharina, I cannot thank you enough.

Unni Rajen Shanker, Editor,
The Indian Express
. I get leave of absence because of the assurance of your presence.

Uschi Seifried, projectionist at Filmhaus, Berlin, for helping me seek the places in a cinema hall where Orphan could hide.

Bloomsbury editors Diya Kar Hazra (New Delhi), Helen Garnons-Williams, Elizabeth Woabank (London), and Lea Beresford (New York). For the warmth with which you welcomed Woman, Man and Child and helped me build them a better home than the one they were first in.

Gillon Aitken and Shruti Debi, the champions. For your faith.

A Note on the Author

Raj Kamal Jha is Chief Editor of
The Indian Express
, which has won the International Press Institute’s India Award for Excellence in Journalism three times. His novels include
The Blue Bedspread
, winner of the 2000 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book (Eurasia) and a
New York Times
Notable Book of the Year;
If You Are Afraid of Heights
, a finalist for the Hutch–Crossword Book Award in 2003; and
Fireproof
, rated first in CNN–IBN’s list of best books published in India in 2006. His novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Raj works in New Delhi and lives in Gurgaon.

By the Same Author

The Blue Bedspread

If You Are Afraid of Heights

Fireproof

Copyright © 2015 by Raj Kamal Jha

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Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

Extract
from “On Killing a Tree” by Gieve Patel

Reproduced by kind permission of the author.

Extract
from
Magadhi and its Formation
by Dr Munishwar Jha,

Calcutta Sanskrit College Research Series, 1967. Reproduced by kind permission of the author.

Extract
from
The Aunt’s Story
by Patrick White,

published by Vintage, copyright © Patrick White, 1994. Reprinted by permission of

The Random House Group Limited, and reproduced with permission of the author’s estate.

Extract
from “The Story Teller,” from the collection
Madwomen

(
The Locas Mujeres Poems of Gabriela Mistral
), edited and translated by Randall Couch,

published by University of Chicago Press, copyright © University of Chicago Press, 2008. Reproduced with permission.

This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

 
Bloomsbury is a trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR

eISBN: 978-1-62040-905-3

First published in the United States in 2015

 
This electronic edition published in March 2015

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