And after two decades of trying to bury the painful memories of her own past in India, they bubble to the surface as she works with Meena. But she finds it increasingly difficult, as she wants so badly to see justice served and Meena to find peace. Smita tries to tell herself to stay neutral, to cover the story as a journalist, as she’s been trained. Now, they await the judge’s decision in the trial. Despite the odds stacked against her, she decided to work with an attorney and prosecute the attackers. They set fire to her small home and killed Meena’s husband and left her disfigured from burns. But her brothers and other village members attacked her for daring to marry a Muslim. Meena, a Hindu woman from a small village, had fallen in love with a Muslim man and run off to marry him and live in his Muslim community. She’s also accustomed to horrifying stories, but being back in India and taking a deep dive into the case her friend Shannon had been writing about becomes particularly painful and strikes close to home. When a dear friend and fellow journalist gets injured and needs help to finish covering an important story, Smita reluctantly leaves her vacation in the Maldives and flies to Mumbai.Īs a writer who covers gender issues, Smita is used to constant travel, grabbing a small suitcase from her sparsely furnished apartment in New York and going where the stories are. In the intervening 20 years, she hasn’t returned and had no intention to do so. Journalist Smita Agarwal was born and raised in India until her family moved to the U.S.

IN SHORT: This fiction book about women’s issues and religion in India has both heartbreak and hope.

Review of honor by thrity umrigar