> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Suri-Mother-India/114540
> Natalie Levisalles, le 16 avril 2009 (Liberation) : https://www.liberation.fr/livres/2009/04/16/manil-suri-je-vous-salue-mira_553010...
> Baptiste Liger, le 7/7/2011 (L'Express) : https://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/mother-india_1009904.html
> Entre les lignes, Vol. 5, no. 4, été 2009, p. 40–41 : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/10990ac

> POUR S’ÉVADER. — Mother India est Mîra. Une femme agaçante et passionnante, que l’on suit sur trente ans de sa vie, à travers sa relation au père, attachante autant qu’ignoble, son amour pour Dev, ses rapports quasi incestueux avec son fils, sa difficulté à affirmer son indépendance. Un roman d’homme qui aime les femmes et les raconte dans toute leur complexité. —Christine SALLÈS
*Manil Suri, Mother India, Albin Michel, 512 p., 22 €.
—Publié le 30/07/2009, sur Psychologies.com

> LA VIE D’UNE FEMME, À L’HEURE DE L’INDÉPENDANCE INDIENNE. — Que se passe-t-il dans la tête de Mira, jeune Indienne, au moment où son pays est en train de basculer dans une nouvelle étape de son histoire, celle de l’indépendance ?
En 1947, Nehru est celui qui permettra à l’Inde de tendre vers une union tant sur le plan politique que religieux. Sa vision laïque du pays nouveau-né lui donne comme dessein d’atténuer la cohabitation houleuse entre musulmans et hindous. Il insuffle au pays un appel au changement, « le passé est derrière nous et c’est l’avenir maintenant qui nous appelle ». Dans les yeux de Mira, il représente, tout comme Gandhi par ailleurs, celui qui ouvre une nouvelle voie à la société indienne. Grâce à ces perspectives, la jeune femme peut envisager son futur sous une nouvelle étoile. Mira, figure de cette jeunesse fleurissante, voit l’émancipation devenir possible.
Cependant, derrière ces frémissements de modernité, la réalité est bien différente. Mother India soulève subtilement la problématique d’un pays divisé entre tradition et modernité. La lente évolution des mentalités y est minutieusement décrite ; la question des castes, de la légitimité de la place des femmes, du système de la dot, de la religion, sont autant de rites qui marquent encore solidement la jeune nation indienne. Mira fera l’amère expérience de la difficulté à voir éclore les prémices d’un nouvel horizon.
Sur ce fond de contexte social, CULTUREL ET POLITIQUE, l’auteur Manil Suri explore avec vigueur le thème des passions féminines. Pour alimenter cette imagerie, les dieux et les déesses de la mythologie indienne sont majestueusement convoqués. « Allume le feu de ton corps […]. Seul l’amour ramène à la lumière » est le refrain, entonné par Dev, jeune chanteur, entraînant Mira sur la voie du désir. Cette rencontre, décisive dans la vie de l’adolescente, amène celle-ci à découvrir et à apprendre le rôle d’épouse et de mère. Chacune de ces étapes, méticuleusement explorée, met en lumière l’émergence de nouveaux sentiments dans la vie de cette femme en devenir.
L’histoire de Mira questionne en profondeur toutes les formes d’interactions sociales et familiales, entre hommes et femmes, mais aussi entre parents et enfants, et sur la difficulté de trouver sa place au sein de cet entrelacs de relations.
Dans une écriture rythmée par la force des sentiments, Manil Suri nous emporte au cœur d’une Inde en mouvement, où chacun est amené à trouver sa place.
*Mother India, Manil Suri, Traduit de l’anglais (Inde) par Dominique Vitalyos, Ed. Albin Michel, 512 pages, 22 €.
—L’Homme en Question, (23), Hiver 2009, (p. 4)

I listened to this novel and must say that the narrator did a very good job and added to the experience by making it easier to get into the lives of the characters. The narration was very well done and was probably the reason why I finished the book.

I am not sure what to make of this novel. On the one hand it is the story of a woman who wanted only to be a mother and wife and ran into the ambitions of her father and family. They wanted her to be one of the "new" Indians, an educated career-oriented woman who was not bound by the traditions and restrictions of the society around her. However, it was clear that was not what she wanted. She wanted to be a traditional Indian mother and wife and did everything she could to circumvent and subvert their ambitions. It was also the story of a woman who became so involved with her son that, if it wasn't an incestuous relationship, it bordered on incest, to the point where it interfered with her ability to live life as well as that of her son to live his life. The inability of the main character to see that she had done anything wrong in the many relationships in her life grated and frankly made her unsympathetic and extremely hard for the reader to like.

The strong point of the book was the history of modern India, told from the point-of-view of an upper middle income Indian woman, the humor found in the pages, and the lyrical prose. There were passages in the novel that were simply laugh-out-loud funny. These were unexpected and very well done and in fact rescued the novel from the unbearable. The way the author weaved historical events into the story was also well done and the placement of these in the novel were strategic and important the outcome of the story and, again, these passages were well done.

This is a writer who shows promise and I do have another of his novels on my shelves that I plan on reading. I think that perhaps the novel was simply to ambitious for the abilities of the writer at this point in his career. It is also possible that it would resonate better with an Indian audience who could identify with the lifestyle of the main character better than could I. ( )

I disliked this book so much when I received as part of the Early Reviewers program in 2007 that I deleted it from my library. Unfortunately, that also deleted the review which I need to have for purposes of the program. So I'm putting it back in, but with considerable reluctance. ( )

A beautifully written book and a compelling story. And having read Death of Vishnu and this book now, I eagerly wait for his third book and any other writing from Suri. He's talented and a strong, poetic writer. The story in Age of Shiva is engaging and clever, keeping me interested and entertained. ( )

Manil Suri's debut novel "The Death of Vishnu" showed great promise and that's how I came to read "The Age of Shiva". It struck me as unusual (but by no means unique or odd) that the author, being a male writer, narrated this novel (all 451 pages of it) on behalf of his female protagonist, from the first person, to be exact. He endeavored to get into female psyche and largely succeeded, except on one issue, which didn't seem natural to me. On the whole, I liked the book. I was enlightened by the sociological description of Indian society, though not completely new to me, and the country's political struggles over the years covered in the book. But all that was a background to the drama of Meera's life, and that's where I thought it was a bit too melancholic for my taste, at times distressingly so. This feeling of unrelenting sadness and frustration threads through the whole book and there seems to be no way out, even though at the very end there is an optimistic note, not too convincing for me, alas...Anyway, that's my subjective impression... But, again, the author himself admits in the after note that he never meant for Meera to be a "noble" heroine... As for his writing style, I was amazed that being not a professional writer, but a mathematics professor (!), Manil Suri has displayed such impressive talent. ( )