Review ‘Nahal’s work will take its place as one of the rare tragic narratives in Indian fiction…intensely felt and poignant.’ – Mulk Raj Anand ‘A classic.’ – Diana Athill A poignant and moving narrative…full of lessons that will never be learnt.’ – New York Times ‘Mr. Nahal, with detailed description of the daily lives of seven families... shows how they were swept along by events. Hindus and Muslims spoke and wrote one Punjabi language, implicitly respected each other's religion, intermarried, shared business interests, attended mixed classes in schools, joined a mixed police force and mixed arms regiments—but in 1947 it all disappeared. Mr. Nahal's simple and moving story brings out each of these points.’ – Times Literary Supplement ‘Done most convincingly, revealing the contradictions, the illusions, the smallness of outlook and occasional acts of kindness and humanity in the face of common disaster.’ – Sunday Standard ‘Chaman Nahal, an Indian writer of unusual ability, has come close to answering the question of the slaughter of the innocents in the compelling novel Azadi.’ – Philadelphia Inquirer ‘Mr. Nahal’s achievement is to show through the eyes of his main character, Lala Kanshi Ram, a Hindu, how people insist on the same patterns of behaviour for themselves whatever their circumstances, whether “free” or not.’ – Guardian ‘This novel depicts in graphic detail the catastrophic incidents that took place immediately after the announcement in June 1947 of the British intention to quit India after partitioning it.’ – The Hindu ‘Moving, dignified, and enthralling.’– Sunday Times ‘As long as novels like Azadi are written in the language, there is strength and continuity in the English Novel.’ – New Society ‘Told with a confident realism lost to English fiction.’ – Observer ‘A Passage to India written by an Indian... with a lyrical, loving tone.’ – Chicago Tribune ‘The power Nahal displays is his sympathetic human involvement, his ability to show that in spite of wide differences in social mores between India and the West, man is man wherever you find him.’ – Carlos Baker ‘Nahal's impressive and elegantly written novel...tells more of the truth about Partition than any historical study.’ – Times ‘In Azadi Chaman Nahal describes this disaster and this tragedy with brilliancy, compassion, and great humanity.’ – Maxwell Geismar ‘Chaman Nahal is a brilliant writer. The book is a good illustration of painstaking and painful documentation.’ – The Tribune ‘Novels such as Azadi can help us to know and understand other peoples, to find some meaningful sense of our common humanity.’ – Kansas City Star ‘This is a wonderful book; it has the air of absolute truth. Funny, tragic, horrifying and ultimately noble, it succeeds in its aim of depicting the agony of a whole great country and at the same time telling us something about human nature in all its richness.’ – British Book News ‘One of a very few Indian novels in which portraits of both male and female characters are equally well drawn.’ – Barbara Harrison in Learning About India ‘This is a warm and optimistic book because it believes in people.’ – Birmingham Post ‘This is a book very well worth reading.’ – Times of India ‘A magnificent work of fiction… It should be required reading at our universities.’ – Hindustan Times
Chaman Nahal, formerly Professor of English at Delhi University and Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge University, was the author of nine novels, four of which constitute The Gandhi Quartet. For Azadi, which has been translated into ten languages, he received the Sahitya Akademi Award as well as the Federation of Indian Publishers Award. His other publications include a collection of short stories, three children's novels and several other literary books. He was a Fulbright visiting scholar at Princeton University from 1967 to 1970 and was a visiting professor at various universities in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia. He ran a column, 'Talking about Books' in the Indian Express from 1966 to 1973. Chaman Nahal also held the Dai Ho Chun Distinguished Chair at the University of Hawaii, 1998-99, where he taught creative writing. Mr Nahal passed away in 2013.
