The Book of Everlasting Things by Aanchal Malhotra
On a January morning in 1938, Samir Vij first locks eyes with Firdaus Khan through the rows of perfume bottles in his family’s ittar shop in Lahore. Over the years that follow, the perfumer’s apprentice and calligrapher’s apprentice fall in love with their ancient crafts and with each other, dreaming of the life they will one day share. But as the struggle for Indian independence gathers force, their beloved city is ravaged by Partition. Suddenly, they find themselves on opposite sides: Samir, a Hindu, becomes Indian and Firdaus, a Muslim, becomes Pakistani, their love now forbidden. Severed from one another, Samir and Firdaus make a series of fateful decisions that will change the course of their lives forever. As their paths spiral away from each other, they must each decide how much of the past they are willing to let go, and what it will cost them.
Lush, sensuous, and deeply romantic, The Book of Everlasting Things is the story of two lovers and two nations, split apart by forces beyond their control, yet bound by love and memory. Filled with exquisite descriptions of perfume and calligraphy, spanning continents and generations, Aanchal Malhotra’s debut novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.
- File Name:the-book-of-everlasting-things-by-aanchal-malhotra.epub
- Original Title:The Book of Everlasting Things
- Creator:Aanchal Malhotra
- Language:en-US
- Identifier:9781250802019
- Publisher:Flatiron Books
- File Size:5.579 MB
Table of Content
- 1. Cover
- 2. Title Page
- 3. Copyright Notice
- 4. Dedication
- 5. Epigraph
- 6. Part One
- 1. The Inheritance
- 2. A Brief History of Belonging
- 3. The War Years
- 4. The Affliction
- 5. The Perfumer’s Apprentice
- 6. The Calligrapher
- 7. Paradise Found
- 8. Alif
- 9. The Barter
- 10. The Soul of the Rose
- 11. The Syntax of Smell
- 12. Carrying an Ancient Art into a Modern World
- 13. The Uncertain Hour
- 14. The Lahore Resolution
- 7. Part Two
- 15. Inquilab Zindabad
- 16. A Hindustan for All Hindustanis
- 17. Yours, Samir
- 18. Tulsi
- 19. The Rain Below Our Feet
- 20. The Gift
- 21. Things Hardly Ever Ruptured in Clean Lines
- 22. To Pause on the Plateau of Some Uncertain Hope
- 23. The World Ablaze
- 24. Like a Body Abandoning Its Shadow
- 8. Part Three
- 25. Are You There, Can You Hear Me?
- 26. Freedom, and Partition
- 27. Meeting the Ocean
- 28. A Land for Our People
- 29. To Leave a Beloved Behind
- 30. A Family of Three
- 31. The Discovery
- 32. With the Indians in France
- 33. In the Trenches
- 34. We Were Here Too
- 35. Breakable, Mortal Bodies
- 36. Grasse
- 37. La Tendresse
- 38. The Confession
- 39. The Slow Wilt
- 9. Part Four
- 40. From the Paris of the East
- 41. The Perfumed Land
- 42. The Second Apprenticeship
- 43. Firaq
- 44. The Hyposmic
- 45. Les Jardins De L’inde
- 46. The Longest Distance
- 47. The Heirs
- 10. Part Five
- 48. A Pakistani in Paris
- 49. This Is How It Happened
- 50. The Emissary
- 51. This Love, Older than I
- 52. I Have Known Her Heart
- 53. Dvořák in the Atelier
- 54. Three Hundred and Eighty-Eight Letters
- 55. A Rose Can Never Hide
- 56. The Namesake
- 57. The Book of Everlasting Things
- 58. The Grandchildren of Partition
- 59. Khazin-E-Firdaus, the Keeper of Paradise
- 11. Notes on the Text
- 12. Acknowledgments
- 13. About the Author
- 14. Newsletter Sign-up
- 15. Contents
- 16. Copyright
Aanchal Malhotra
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Fabulously written. Thank you!