The Distance — Saborna Roychowdhury

THE DISTANCE by Saborna Roychowdhury "...a love letter to India itself...." South Asian Review Torn between the tradition-bound India of her grandmother and the new, striving country of her peers, young college student Mini searches for love and meaning in gritty Calcutta. Attracted at first to Amitav, an idealistic rebel whose risky attempts to help his countrymen fill her with admiration, Mini is ultimately repulsed by his naivete and unwillingness to see beyond his own personal passions. When her parents begin the process of arranging a marriage, she doesn't resist. With her new husband, Neel, she moves to Vancouver, discovering all the wonders of life in a developed country. But material comfort only makes her yearn with ever-growing intensity for the things she's left behind, and when she returns to her native land five years later, she becomes acutely aware of the distance between dreams and reality, longing and fulfillment, love and sacrifice. “Saborna Roychowdhury addresses the perennial questions facing contemporary Indian women in her first novel, The Distance, and offers some surprising answers…. Ultimately, this novel offers not a love triangle between Mini, Amitav, and Neel, but a love letter to India itself.” �"South Asian Review.