Novel
Nectar in a Sieve
Kamala Markandaya · 1954
Synopsis
The fourth daughter of a village headman whose fortune has dwindled, Rukmani is married at twelve to Nathan, a landless tenant farmer, and follows him to a palm-leaf hut at the edge of the rice paddies. She tells the story of her life, dependent on the monsoon: the births, the rains that drown the fields, the droughts that starve the family, and the tannery that is built near the village and gradually turns it into a town.
Context
The author's first published novel, it appeared in 1954 in London with Putnam, then in New York with John Day, under the pen name she took at that time. Its title comes from a line of Coleridge, “Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve”. She wrote it in England, where she had been settled since 1948, far from the Tamil Nadu village she describes. Chosen by the Book-of-the-Month Club, it became a bestseller in the United States.
Who it is for
A novel of about two hundred and fifty pages, told in the first person by the peasant woman herself, in plain language.
Prizes and reception
Notable Book of the Year 1955 for the American Library Association; it has remained the author's most widely read work and was long studied in American schools.
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