by Megha Majumdar

Megha Majumdar’s slim sophomore novel “manages superbly to be many things,” said Claude Peck in The Minnesota Star Tribune. In a near-future Kolkata where food is scarce and a climate shift is making the heat unbearable, a young mother is preparing to escape in a week with her father and her 2-year-old when a desperate thief named Boomba inadvertently steals the trio’s visas and passports. But Ma isn’t the type to give up, and as she scrambles to salvage her family getaway scheme with the days counting down, Majumdar exhibits “the eye and ear of a poet” and “the fierce morality of a Joseph Conrad.” A Guardian and a Thief plays out in “a week of wild swerves, both comic and tragic,” while simultaneously presenting Ma, Boomba, and the reader with a lingering quandary, said The Atlantic. “In the name of protecting those we love most, what crimes against others will we commit?”