Megha Majumdar A Guardian and a Thief review and information of the content of the new novel by the Indian-born writer who lives in New York. Knopf will publish the new Megha Majumdar novel, on october 14, 2025.
Megha Majumdar A Guardian and a Thief review
- “A true literary achievement … Majumdar creates a tense and deeply compassionate portrait of desperation, fear and the combined selflessness and selfishness of parenthood … Detail is the strongest thing in A Guardian and a Thief. It conveys the nuances of not only love but also wisdom … it also makes this novel, wrenching thought it often is, a true joy to read.” (The New York Times Book Review)
- “A Guardian and a Thief is an achievement. It deserves praise. It deserves study. It deserves to be read, and sat with, and thought about … The craft of this novel is something approaching immaculate.” (Pittsburgh Post Gazette)
- “A beguilingly simple tale. A complicated morality play. A sensitive evocation of time … A Guardian and a Thief] is a contemporary classic.” (Minnesota Star Tribune)
A Guardian and a Thief
- Author: Megha Majumdar (India)
- Book type: Indian novel
- Publisher: Knopf
- To be released: 14 October 2025
- Length: 224 pages
- Format: hardcover / ebook / audiobook
- Prize: $ 29.00
- Order book from: Amazon / Bol
Blurb of the new novel by Megha Majumdar
Megha Majumdar’s electrifying new novel, following her acclaimed New York Times bestseller A Burning – longlisted for the National Book Award—is set in a near-future Kolkata, India, ravaged by climate change and food scarcity, in which two families seeking to protect their children must battle each other. A piercing and propulsive tour de force.
In a near-future Kolkata beset by flooding and famine, Ma, her two-year-old daughter, and her elderly father are just days from leaving the collapsing city behind to join Ma’s husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After procuring long-awaited visas from the consulate, they pack their bags for the flight to America. But in the morning they awaken to discover that Ma’s purse, containing their treasured immigration documents, has been stolen.
Set over the course of one week, A Guardian and a Thieftells two stories: the story of Ma’s frantic search for the thief while keeping hunger at bay during a worsening food shortage; and the story of Boomba, the thief, whose desperation to care for his family drives him to commit a series of escalating crimes whose consequences he cannot fathom. With stunning control and command, Megha Majumdar paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of two families, each operating from a place of ferocious love and undefeated hope, each discovering how far they will go to secure their children’s future as they stave off encroaching catastrophe.
A masterful new work from one of the most exciting voices of her generation.
Megha Majumdar was born in 1987 or 1988 in Kolkata, India. Her debut novel, the New York Times bestseller A Burning, was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, and the American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medal. It was a TODAY show Read With Jenna Book Club Pick and a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick. In India, it won a Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar. A Burning was named one of the best books of 2020 by media including The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, The Atlantic, Vogue, and TIME. Majumdar is the recipient of a Whiting Award, as well as of fellowships from the Civitella Ranieri and Hawthornden foundations. Born and raised in Kolkata, India, and educated at Harvard and Johns Hopkins, she now lives in New York.
