A History of Burning by Janika Oza

A History of Burning by Janika Oza
UK Publication: May 2023
Reviewed by: Book Worm  
Rating: [★★★]

This ARC was provided by Random House UK (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

Seven word review – The History of this world is dark.

Synopsis from Goodreads: An epic, sweeping historical debut novel spanning continents and a century, and how one act of survival can reverberate through generations.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Pirbhai, a teenage boy looking for work, is taken from his village in India to labor on the East African Railway for the British. One day Pirbhai commits an act to ensure his survival that will haunt him forever and reverberate across his family’s future for years to come.

Pirbhai’s children are born and raised under the jacaranda trees and searing sun of Kampala during the waning days of British colonial rule. As Uganda moves towards independence and military dictatorship, Pirbhai’s granddaughters, Latika, Mayuri, and Kiya, are three sisters coming of age in a divided nation. As they each forge their own path for a future, they must carry the silence of the history they’ve inherited. In 1972, under Idi Amin’s brutal regime and the South Asian expulsion, the family has no choice but to flee, and in the chaos, they leave something devastating behind.

As Pirbhai’s grandchildren, scattered across the world, find their way back to each other in exile in Toronto, a letter arrives that stokes the flames of the fire that haunts the family. It makes each generation question how far they are willing to go, and who they are willing to defy to secure their own place in the world.

A History of Burning is an unforgettable tour de force, an intimate family saga of complicity and resistance, about the stories we share, the ones that remain unspoken, and the eternal search for home.

My Thoughts: A well-researched and fascinating multi-generational family epic starting in 1898 with the building of the Uganda Railway and ending in 1992 with the Toronto riots following the police killing of Raymond Lawrence.

The story follows the family of Pribhai down through the generations from his kidnapping in India to work on the Uganda railway to the terrifying reign of Idi Amin and the displacement of this family to safe countries around the world.

Life is not easy for any of the family regardless of place or time in which they are living. There are always challenges; poverty, forbidden love, war, bad years and final the prejudice experienced by immigrants. Despite the challenges the family survive and in some cases thrive in the harsh conditions the world has thrown at them.

This is a story that covers a lot of tragedy and is an eye opener regarding various periods of history in various parts of the world a book we should all read to appreciate everything we have and how easy it could be to lose it all.

My one complaint is that the time jumps jarred me out of the story because as a reader I had to reorient myself with what was happening now and to live without knowing what happened in the intervening years. This is however a minor complaint.

Who would like this? I would recommend this to fans of historical fiction and family sagas.

We want to hear from you! Have you read this book? What did you think?