Won't You Stay, Radhika?

After her widowed father marries a younger woman, Radhika's world falls

apart. She feels betrayed-the emotional and intellectual bond that she

had forged with him since the early death of her mother breaks with that

sudden marriage. To escape the unbearable situation at home-the growing

rift between her and her father-Radhika moves to Chicago to pursue her

master's in fine arts. She returns to India two years later, burdened by a

sense of alienation and homesickness, only to realize that while nothing had

changed in her country, everything had. The family that she had longed to

be reunited with barely acknowledges her arrival. The sense of belonging is

missing, leaving her in 'an emotional state of in-between-ness, of universal

unbelonging'. As days pass, Radhika is paralysed with ennui, which tinges

all her relationships-romantic or filial. So she lies on her takht, bored,

immobile, uninspired...

An extraordinary chronicler of the inner lives of the urban Indian woman,

Usha Priyamvada is a pioneering figure in modern Hindi literature. Won't

You Stay, Radhika?, first published in 1967, expertly explores the stifling and

narrow-minded social ideals that continue to trap so many Indian women in

the complex web of individual freedom, and social and familial obligation.

Daisy Rockwell's sensitive and skilful translation brings this poignant Hindi

novel to a new set of readers.