I enjoyed this novel set in Bangladesh on the eve of and during the War of Independence with Pakistan in 1971. It is told with a narrow focus, through a middle-aged widow who was an outsider to Bengal nationalism (she grew up in Kolkota, on the Indian side of the border from Bangladesh, as a Urdu speaker, it was a bit vague whether she was ethnically Bengal or not), and her two nationalist, college-aged children. The author makes little attempt to explain the history and ethnic differences (sending me to do some outside reading), and hides key details about the characters lives until later in the story. That worked fine for me, although other readers in our group were frustrated by the withholding of information.

The first third was a bit slow and harder to get through, with the confusing characters and historical situation. But after that things became clearer, and the plot became more exciting as the war heated up. The three main characters were all intriguing figures.

The author comes from a famous Bangladeshi family of authors and journalists, but she grew up mostly out of the country. My Bangladeshi friend in our book group was bothered by what she saw as a lot of inaccuracies about the history and culture.