Farthest field : an Indian story of the Second World War / Raghu Karnad.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-294) and index.

"A brilliantly conceived non-fiction epic, a war narrated through the lives and deaths of a single family. A young man from the sleepy south Indian coast, sensing adventure and opportunity, follows his brothers-in-law into the Army - and onto the front lines of India's Second World War. His army fights for the British Empire, even as his countrymen fight for freedom from it, and Indian soldiers end up on both sides of the vast conflict. The narrative travels from Madras to Eritrea, Iraq and Burma, unfolding the saga of a young family amazed by their swiftly changing world and devastated by its violence. 'Farthest Field' reveals how the war transformed India, its army, and the British Empire that had ruled the country for so long, and would, barely two years after the end of the war, abandon it to the horrors of Partition. In penetrating non-fiction prose, Raghu Karnad retrieves from obscurity the epic of India's Second World War - a war the world reveres, but India would choose to forget. With echoes of Edmund de Waal's Hare with the Amber Eyes and the work of Michael Ondaatje, the book is both intimate and wise. It has the emotional power of poetry and the punch of the best history. It marks the debut of a remarkable new writer."--Wheelers.co.nz.