The Gorkha Girl

The Gorkha Girl traces the stories of two generations of the Sanyal family as they move across the globe swept by the forces of history and personal volition. Amar and Sumitra’s story allows their daughters, Molly and Maya, to understand their own search for love, belonging, and identity. It is a story of innocence and experience, of war, longing and hope.The story is told through the experiences and reminiscences of Maya Sanyal, who leaves India for graduate school in the United States, then marries and raises a bicultural and biracial family.The novel traces her complex relationships with her family, both in India and the United States, and the cultures that shape them. Her relationship with her absent father, who served in World War Two and Korea and never returns from the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971, serves as a recurring motif in the novel that further complicates her questions about identity, belonging, and the meaning of “home.” Read more