A People's History of Heaven

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A People’s History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian

Five young women living in a Bangalore slum known as “Swarga” or “Heaven” (due to its sign, denoting it Swargahalli, having been evocatively snapped off halfway through the word) are the heart of Mathangi Subramanian’s A People’s History of Heaven. This is a novel that also feels like poetry, and also feels like a collection of short stories. The language is rich and figurative: “Eyelids wrinkled and transparent as jasmine petals. Purple lips pinched together like carnations” (24); “Horns trill and drums rat-a-tat-tat. Silence splits into coppery shards” (169). This language, and the young women whose lives it narrates, serve as the stem from which blossom the episodic, almost-short-stories that make up the novel. There’s stories from Padma’s search to find her mother a job. There’s the story of Rukshana’s first love. There’s the story of how Joy became recognized as a girl, of what happened the day the girls came to take Deepa to see the butterflies in the park, of Banu’s stint as a graffiti artist. These branches and blossoms support the weight of further stories so that tales of the girls’ mothers, aunties, grandmothers, school teacher, and fathers are also included, adding further depth and context.

While the hardships faced by Heaven’s women residents—abuse, abandonment, poverty, overwork, and misogyny to name a few—are not elided or excluded from A People’s History of Heaven, neither are they its focus. This is a novel which celebrates its young protagonists in all of their solidarity, strength, and ability to envision and work towards the selves and futures they desire.

Subjects this book includes which some readers may be sensitive to: abandonment, misogyny.