Service95 Recommends is the home of the books we love and reviews from our contributors. The Fertile Earth by Ruthbika Rao is a novel set in 1960s India and follows the lives of four children divided by class but united in an unlikely friendship exploring the exploitative nature of a segregated nation.
What We Say: “This story opens with the assassination of an entire family of zamindars (landlords) at their gadi in rural Telangana, India, in 1970. It then zooms back to the same village 20 years before, where we follow a cast of characters including Krishna, Vijaya and Ranga – growing up against a backdrop of huge political change – to discover how the atrocity came about. It has everything I love in a novel – immersive family drama, evocative world-building and a central love story. I was hooked” – Katie Teehan
What They Say: “The Fertile Earth is an unforgettable novel. It’s beautifully written, immersive, clear-eyed in its depiction of caste and oppression, yet tender in its portrayal of heartbreak and hope” — Deepa Anappara
Available on Bookshop.org, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble
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Katie Teehan is Editorial Director at Service95
