Based on the original edition, first publication was in the USA in 1954. In a small village in India, a simple peasant woman recalls her life as a child bride, a farmer's wife, and a devoted mother amidst fights to meet changing times, poverty, and disaster. This is the very moving story of a woman in India whose whole life was a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loved. Markandaya's first published novel Nectar in a Sieve was a bestseller and cited as an American Library Association Notable Book in 1955. Its depiction of rural India and the suffering of its poor made it popular in the West.An unforgettable novel that "will wring your heart out" (Associated Press).