Made into the film Earth-1947 by Canadian director Deepa Mehta, Bapsi Sidhwa s Ice-Candy Man takes the readers back to the partition of the subcontinent in 1947 as narrated by Lenny, the polio-stricken daughter of an affluent Parsee family in Lahore.
Lenny sees Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Parsees and Sikhs fight for their land and their lives and is an unwilling witness to the trauma that bears the crux of the Partition tale becoming, like many others, the victim of her religion. Bapsi Sidhwa, Pakistan s most gifted yet down-to-earth novelist, resurrects the story of Partition, which is also relevant today as a tool of history and a chilling reminder of the ethnic hatred that still stalks the subcontinent.
Ice-Candy Man was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and a Quality Paperback Book Club selection.
Praise for Ice-Candy Man
Ice-Candy Man deserves to be ranked as amongst the most authentic and best on the partition of India. Khushwant Singh in The Tribune
“Sidhwa s Rabelaisian language and humour are enormously refreshing.”
