Two families, both in near-desperate states, find themselves thrown together in a portrait of ferocious hope and undeniable love that makes them do strange and sometimes terrible things.

Megha Majumdar, author of the acclaimed bestseller A BURNING, once again looks at the uncomfortable realities of life in her homeland of Kolkata, India, where the past and present try to coexist. Featuring heartfelt characters, A GUARDIAN AND A THIEF is about the painful realities of the undeniable changes wrought by an unstable environment.

In a near-future Kolkata, Ma; her two-year-old daughter, Mishti, a bright and cheery presence in a crazy world; and her elderly father, Dadu, have procured the necessary documents so they can leave the collapsing city behind to join Ma’s husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan. With their bags packed, they have only one week to wait for their transportation out of the country. However, it is discovered that Ma’s purse, which contains all their treasured immigration documents, has been inexplicably stolen.

"In her small but masterful tale, Majumdar demonstrates that both the guardian and the thief lead lives that are universal, making for some wonderful, thought-provoking fiction."

Having left a window open on a night when the ungodly heat of the season was creating a myriad of food shortages and medical issues, someone availed themselves of what Ma had been protecting (but clearly not enough).

Taking place over seven days, A GUARDIAN AND A THIEF tells dual stories: Ma’s frantic search for the culprit while keeping her family’s hunger at bay, and Boomba, the thief, whose desperation to care for his family drives him to commit escalating illegalities. Majumdar manages to create portraits of two distinctive families, both of whom are looking only to protect their loved ones in a political atmosphere that doesn’t care about them. How far will they go to accomplish this while keeping themselves out of the clutches of the law?

Majumdar is a lovely writer. Her prose is justifiably emotional as each character (except for Mishti, who endearingly begs for “flowerflower” as she has just discovered cauliflower) mines their souls for what they really want and how much physical danger or abuse is worth enduring in order to get it.

One of my favorite characters is Dadu, who doesn’t want to go off to America and would prefer to live amongst the people he already knows. But he won’t speak his preferences out loud because the love he has for his daughter and granddaughter is so insanely intense that he puts their needs first. This is Majumdar’s greatest gift as a prose stylist --- allowing the inner and outer actions of the characters to fight against each other as the families fight each other in the physical world. There is so much strife, so much hard effort put into deeds good and bad, that readers could never be bored as the story becomes increasingly twisted.

Although the novel takes place in the “near future,” this is a scenario in which any one of us could find ourselves, anywhere in the world. In her small but masterful tale, Majumdar demonstrates that both the guardian and the thief lead lives that are universal, making for some wonderful, thought-provoking fiction.