Uprising: A Novel

Summary

Equal parts heartrending and hopeful, Uprising is an “extraordinary” (Salman Rushdie), “powerful and uncompromising” (Kamila Shamsie) portrait of women’s lives told from the collective voice of their children.

On a desolate, sinking island off the coast of Bangladesh, a group of children witness their mothers living lives of cruelty and servitude.

Bought and sold by Amma, the ruthless madam who was once herself sold into slavery, the women have accepted their fates as sex workers. Yet their children weave fantastic tales, imagining that someday they will escape the island and enjoy a life of freedom.

When Kusum Khan, a young, educated woman from the city, is brought to the island, she too is subjected to Amma’s violent induction. Yet Kusum refuses to yield, and soon the complacency of her fellow prisoners turns into ferocity and defiance. Together, they begin a rebellion that will upend their island and the very order of things.

A blazing drama of resistance and female power by an author who “deftly weaves the personal and the political” (The New Yorker), Uprising gives voice to the silenced through the story of a revolution no one saw coming.