The Secrets Between Us — Thrity Umrigar

The author of Bombay Time, If Today Be Sweet, and The Weight of Heaven, Thrity Umrigar is as adept and compelling in The Space Between Us -- vividly capturing the social struggles of modern India in a luminous, addictively readable novel of honor, tradition, class, gender, and family. A portrayal of two woman discovering an emotional rapport as they struggle against the confines of a rigid caste system, Umrigar's captivating second novel echoes the timeless intensity of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible -- a quintessential triumph of modern literary fiction.