Why read Nectar in a Sieve?

Book cover of Nectar in a Sieve

Book description

The acclaimed million-copy bestselling novel about a woman’s struggle to find happiness in a changing India.

Married as a child bride to a tenant farmer she had never met, Rukmani works side by side in the field with her husband to wrest a living from a land ravaged by droughts,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Nectar in a Sieve as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

George W. Norton

Author

I love this timeless novel because it helps me picture, better than any book I have read, what it is like to struggle as the wife of a poor rice farmer in India.

Rukmani, the book’s main character, endures endless battles with nature, poverty, hunger, discrimination, and crime, yet remains optimistic about life and devoted to her husband until the end.

Reading this book in college was one factor that helped me decide to join the Peace Corps and devote much of my career to working with low-income farmers in developing countries.

From George's list on The best books for visualizing hunger and health problems in developing countries.