The Two-Tailed Snake
An literary coming-of-age tale set in 1940s India
Published on 14. September 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
224 pages
978-1-914148-42-2 (ISBN)
Description
North-east India, 1945. Tensions are rising, but fourteen-year-old Joya doesn't pay much attention to 'political business' - she is more concerned with doing well at school and having fun with her best friends.
Yet when her father disappears without a trace, Joya's life falls apart.
Forced to drop out of school and support her mother by working in a garment factory, she refuses to accept that her father is gone forever, spending her nights sewing him a suit from scraps of fine material.
But as political unrest grows and rumours of corruption spread, Joya questions the true nature of her father's disappearance. And who is the sinister figure known only as the two-tailed snake?
Yet when her father disappears without a trace, Joya's life falls apart.
Forced to drop out of school and support her mother by working in a garment factory, she refuses to accept that her father is gone forever, spending her nights sewing him a suit from scraps of fine material.
But as political unrest grows and rumours of corruption spread, Joya questions the true nature of her father's disappearance. And who is the sinister figure known only as the two-tailed snake?
Reviews / Votes
'An accomplished and deeply imagined story of familial love and separation, set in an India of looming independence and partition. One gains a child's-eye view of an interwoven society fatally sundering along the fault lines of politics, caste and religion' -Mike Fox Author of The Violet Eye'Ghosh combines her uniquely lush, lyrical prose with a compelling story rich in the political upheaval of late twentieth century India' -Eileen Merriman, author of The Silence of Snow
'The Two-Tailed Snake is our elusive and chimeric guide as one girl comes of age during the Partition of India and Pakistan. Through Ghosh's deft storytelling, Joya's resilience becomes the resilience of a country' -Shobha Rao author of Girls Burn Brighter
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 178 mm
Width: 111 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
158 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-914148-42-2 (9781914148422)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Nod Ghosh was born in Birmingham and currently lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, where she works as a medical laboratory scientist specialising in the diagnosis of cancers. Her short stories and flash fiction have been widely published in journals and anthologies, and her work has been listed for awards including the Bath Novella-in-Flash Award and the New Zealand National Flash Fiction Day competition. She has had four previous novellas published: The Crazed Wind (2018), Filthy Sucre (2020), Toy Train (2021) and Throw a Seven (2023).