A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar review survival in a climate-ravaged Kolkata

"The title characters of Megha Majumdar's second novel are a young man referred to only by a nickname, Boomba, and a woman known as Ma. Each regards themselves as a guardian, and the other as a thief. The reader is not asked to take sides, but instead to observe how the world makes thieves of guardians, and vice versa. A Guardian and a Thief takes place over what is meant to be the last week of Ma living in Kolkata. She, her father and her two-year-old daughter are about to join Ma's husband in the United States, as the recipients of prized climate visas."

"Floods and extreme heat have turned Kolkata into a city of persistent food shortages. Black marketeers hoard eggs, fruit and vegetables, while fish, previously the cornerstone of Bengali cooking, has vanished altogether. The terrifying word famine is disinterred. This is one of the many ways in which climate change has sent Kolkata forward into the past. While Majumdar's acclaimed debut, A Burning, laid out the appalling consequences of a young woman's Facebook post, in A Guardian and a Thief the city appears to be almost entirely smartphone-free."

"She has, after all, an old father and an infant daughter to take care of. But then, just as she is about to leave Kolkata behind, a new shelter resident who has observed her theft breaks into her house. Boomba takes not only the stolen food, but her purse, which contains her family's passports and the climate visas that will open the gates of America."

The narrative follows Ma and Boomba in Kolkata during Ma's intended final week before emigrating to the United States on climate visas. Severe floods and heat have produced chronic food shortages, hoarding, and the disappearance of staple fish, reviving the specter of famine. Ma, who manages a homeless shelter, has been stealing food to feed her old father and infant daughter; a new resident, Boomba, discovers the theft and burglarizes her home, taking the stolen food plus the passports and climate visas that would secure their departure. The story examines how scarcity and survival reshape moral roles and identities, rendered in spare, highly efficient prose.

Read at www.theguardian.com