"Bracingly honest... Umrigar is a perceptive and often piercing writer."
-- New York Times
A a powerful social commentary on the glorious and
frustrating jigsaw puzzle that is modern India.
-- The Economist
A worthy read as well as a juicy one, offering
clear-eyed social commentary as it dishes up delicious
flavours, pungent odours and glorious seaside vistas.
-- Montreal Gazette
Umrigar the author virtually disappears, achieving a
kind of omniscience that only the best writers can
hope for.
-- Bookreporter.com
A story intimately and compassionately told against the sensuous background of everyday life in Bombay . . . Umrigar is a skilled storyteller, and her memorable characters will live on for a long time.
-- Washington Post
Part of what makes "The Space Between Us" so engrossing is its ability to make readers feel empathy for its subjects.
-- San Francisco Chronicle
Sadness suffuses this eloquent tale, whose heart-stopping plot twists reveal the ferocity of fate.
-- Booklist (Starred Review)
A ruminative novel . . . layered with keen, feminine insight into class and family, betrayal, guilt and love. Umrigar is at her best conveying the small moments that sustain or degrade the minuet of intimacy.
-- Cleveland Plain Dealer
A subtle, elegant analysis of class and power. Umrigar transcends the specifics of two Bombay women and creates a novel that quietly roars against tyranny.
-- Kirkus Review
Umrigar's schematic novel (after Bombay Time) illustrates the intimacy, and the irreconcilable class divide, between two women in contemporary Bombay.
-- Publisher's Weekly
An elegant novel of the heart and spirit whose
characters are testament to the essential human drive
-- to find joy, peace and love where we can.
-- Beacon Journal
Umrigar's prose is so powerful, so true, and so
cleanly written that it offers one of those moments in
which those of us who live by fiction live for: when
writing throws back the veil between life and art
-- PAGES
Exquisite storytelling interspersed with cultural and
class-based insights
-- The Edmonton (Canada) Journal
Provocative and disturbing
-- The Boston Globe
A vital social comment on contemporary India.
-- Financial Times (U.K.)
Umrigar, like Jane Austen and Carol Shields, has
worked on the canvas of domestic life . . .spare,
sharp prose
-- The Winnipeg Free Press, Canada
Language that is fresh and fluid
-- The Scotsman
Empathy is this novel's greatest virtue
-- The Calcutta Telegraph
First Darling Of The Morning: A poignant and brave exploration of childhood's less
lovely spaces, First Darling is a sensitive,
vividly-relived memoir that captures the innocence and
confusion of a small Indian girl struggling against
the paradoxes that rock her life. Told with startling
honesty, the memoir paints an unforgettable picture of
middle-class life in contemporary Bombay. 