The Blue Bedspread

The Blue Bedspread
1999 Picador ed.
AuthorRaj Kamal Jha
Publication date
1999
ISBN9780330373852

The Blue Bedspread is the 1999 first novel by Indian writer Raj Kamal Jha.[1][2]

In the novel an old man sits up all night in Calcutta writing for his dead older sister's newborn child, who is sleeping in the next room and will be taken the next day by adoptive parents.[2] He says "I will tell you happy stories and I will tell you sad stories. And remember, my child, your truth lies somewhere in between".[2] The book has been described as "the most tender, sensuous and beguiling book about incest and child abuse you'll ever read".[3]

A 2007 paper by Alex Barley in Narrative Inquiry used this novel and Anita Desai's Fire on the Mountain to consider "the idea of home as a space of sanctuary and retreat from the problems of domestic life".[4]

  1. ^ Bose, Sudip (11 April 2000). ""The Blue Bedspread" by Raj Kamal Jha". Salon. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  2. ^ a b c "The Blue Bedspread by Raj Kamal Jha". BookDragon. Smithsonian Institution Asian Pacific American Center. 26 July 2000. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  3. ^ Hickling, Alfred (15 August 2003). "Review: If You Are Afraid of Heights by Raj Kamal Jha". The Guardian.
  4. ^ Barley, Alexandra (6 November 2007). "Home as sanctuary: Stories of secrets and sadness in Fire on the Mountain and The Blue Bedspread". Narrative Inquiry. 17 (1): 119–139. doi:10.1075/ni.17.1.09bar.