by Bapsi Sidhwa (1991)
Cracking India (originally published as Ice-Candy-Man) is Bapsi Sidhwa's searing masterpiece of Partition fiction, later adapted by Deepa Mehta into the film Earth. Told through the observant, candid eyes of Lenny, a young Parsi girl with polio living in Lahore, it chronicles the catastrophic disintegration of communal harmony and the brutal violence that tore neighbors apart in 1947.
Khushwant Singh
Train to Pakistan is a historic 1956 novel by Khushwant Singh, recounting the human tragedy of the 1947 Partition of India. Set in Mano Majra, a quiet border village where Sikhs and Muslims have lived peacefully for centuries, the arrival of a 'ghost train' loaded with murdered refugees shatters peace and tests the limits of humanity and love.
Amrita Pritam
Pinjar (The Skeleton) is Amrita Pritam's groundbreaking 1950 Punjabi classic depicting the plight of women during the 1947 Partition of India. It follows Puro, a Hindu woman abducted by a Muslim man named Rashid; rejected by her family for being 'defiled,' Puro is forced to confront identity, survival, and compassion amidst profound communal tragedy.
Janika Oza
A History of Burning is Janika Oza's sweeping, multi-generational debut novel spanning four continents and five generations. Beginning with Pirbhai, an Indian boy forced into indentured labor building the East African railway in 1898, the novel traces a family through Ugandan expulsion and resettlement across England and Canada, testifying to the enduring flames of family solidarity.
Iftikhar Arif
This anthology brings together the work of forty-four poets and reveals a society riven by ethnic, class and political differences - but also a literature unified by traditions both classical and modern, belonging to the same culture, and sharing many of the same concerns and perceptions.--From back cover.