Books & Books and Belmont Books present…

A Virtual Evening with Thrity Umrigar

in conversation with

Ellen Barry

discussing

Honor: A Novel

(Algonquin Books, $26.95)

Thursday, January 27, 7 PM ET  | Via Zoom

GET TICKETS HERE

Books & Books is excited to partner with Belmont Books for this special conversation with Thrity Umrigar! Tickets are bundled with the book or free.

Once you make your purchase, we will send you a Zoom registration link (24 hours BEFORE) that will give you access to the event via private link. See below for detailed information on tickets.

About the Book:

In this riveting and immersive novel, bestselling author Thrity Umrigar tells the story of two couples and the sometimes dangerous and heartbreaking challenges of love across a cultural divide.

Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena—a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man—Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment. But the dual love stories of Honor are as different as the cultures of Meena and Smita themselves: Smita realizes she has the freedom to enter into a casual affair, knowing she can decide later how much it means to her.

In this tender and evocative novel about love, hope, familial devotion, betrayal, and sacrifice, Thrity Umrigar shows us two courageous women trying to navigate how to be true to their homelands and themselves at the same time.

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About the Author:

Thrity Umrigar is the bestselling author of nine novels, including The Space Between Us, which was a finalist for the PEN/Beyond Margins Award, as well as a memoir and three picture books. Her books have been translated into several languages and published in more than fifteen countries. She is the winner of a Lambda Literary Award and a Seth Rosenberg Award and is Distinguished Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University. A recipient of the Nieman Fellowship to Harvard, she has contributed to the  Boston Globe , the Washington Post, the New York Times and Huffington Post.

About the Moderator:

Ellen Barry is currently a Boston-based reporter for the New York Times. Previously, she was the newspaper’s Chief International Correspondent, based in London, New Delhi-based South Asia bureau chief, Moscow bureau chief, Moscow-based foreign correspondent for The Times and a reporter for the Metro section, based in Queens. In India, she won the Asia Society’s Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Journalism on Asia, for deeply reported pieces on the position of women in India’s workforce. She also won the 2018 Ramnath Goenka award for best Foreign Correspondent covering India. She was part of a team that won the 2017 Society of Publishers in Asia award for excellence in reporting breaking news. While in Russia, she was part of a team which won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for International reporting for a series on impunity in Russia’s justice system. In 2004, she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in beat reporting, for a set of articles on mental health. She is the recipient of the American Society of Newspaper Editors 2004 Jesse Laventhol Prize for Deadline News Reporting by a Team for her work on the Station Nightclub Fire. Ms. Barry, a Yale graduate, lived in the Soviet Union as a child, and began her career at the Moscow Times. She is married to Keith Wilson, and is the mother of two daughters, Alice and June.