The Selector of Souls begins with a scene that is terrifying, harrowing and yet strangely tender: we're in the mid ranges of the Himalayas as a young woman gives birth to her third child with the help of her mother, Damini. The birth brings no joy, just a horrible accounting, and the act that follows--the huge sacrifice made by Damini out of love of her daughter--haunts the novel. In Shauna Singh Baldwin's enthralling novel, two fascinating, strong-willed women must deal with the relentless logic forced upon them by survival: Damini, a Hindu midwife, and Anu, who flees an abusive marriage for the sanctuary of the Catholic church. When Sister Anu comes to Damini's home village to open a clinic, their paths cross, and each are certain they are doing what's best for women. What do health, justice, education and equality mean for women when India is marching toward prosperity, growth and becoming a nuclear power? If the baby girls and women around them are to survive, Damini and Anu must find creative ways to break with tradition and help this community change from within.

The Selector of Souls

Literature & Fiction

Baldwin, Shauna Singh

Literary

Knopf Canada

Vintage Canada

"This is a story about estrangement and division... This narrative about fathers estranged from daughters, mothers from sons, husbands from wives, becomes a metaphor for the turmoil and flux we call history, without always speaking of that history directly... This is a novel whose many themes and characters have been orchestrated, for the most part, with great confidence and without sacrificing complexity. It is an impressive debut." —Amit Chaudhuri, National Post (Canada) "This is a captivating jewel of a novel by a seasoned and sophisticated writer... Beyond being a compelling tale of individuals, What the Body Remembers offers a gimlet-eyed view of a pluralistic society's disintegration into factionalism and anarchy. Though the events of 1947 India are a half-world and half-century away, in light of the religious and ethnic turmoil raging on earth, they still have much to teach us." —Washington Post Out of the brutal drama of Partition comes a rich, eloquent, and stunningly accomplished literary debut... It is 1937 in a small village in Punjab, India, the beginning of the tense and tumultuous decade that will culminate in the violent and still controversial Partition between India and Pakistan. Roop is a young girl whose mother has died in childbirth and whose father is deep in debt. And so she is elated when she learns that she is to become the second wife of a wealthy Sikh landowner, Sardarji, whose first wife, Satya, has failed to bear him any children. Roop initially believes that Satya, still very much in residence, will treat her as a friend or even a sister, but it quickly becomes apparent that their relationship will be far more complicated than that. Roop's story pulls the reader immediately into her world, making it seem startlingly intimate. As the novel builds, What the Body Remembers becomes Satya's story too, as she is forced to adopt ever more desperate measures to maintain her place in society and in her husband's heart. And it is also Sardarji's story, as the India he knows and understands begins to change beneath his feet. The escalating tensions in his own family reflect those of the religious and political dynamics that will lead to the cleaving of India—and trap the Sikhs in the middle of a horror wrought by the wresting of land. In a dramatic, terrifying conclusion the tragedy and strength of Roop, Satya, and Sardarji's lives reflect the greater world in which they must survive. Deeply imbued with the languages, customs, and layered history of colonial India, What the Body Remembers tells the story of the Partition for the first time from the Sikh women's point of view, reclaiming a strikingly intimate and vivid sense of the large and colorful canvas of India and Pakistan. Beautifully written and profoundly shocking, Shauna Singh Baldwin's debut novel is at once poetic, political, feminist, and sensual—a true triumph of language and storytelling. "In What the Body Remembers, with her sharp focus on women in such turmoil, Baldwin offers us a moveing and engaging look at 20th-century India's most troubled years." —New York Times Book Review

What the Body Remembers: A Novel

United States

Nan A. Talese

Out of the rich culture of India and the brutal drama of the 1947 Partition comes this lush and eloquent debut novel about two women married to the same man. Roop is a young girl whose mother has died and whose father is deep in debt. So she is elated to learn she is to become the second wife of a wealthy Sikh landowner in a union beneficial to both. For Sardaji’s first wife, Satya, has failed to bear him children. Roop believes that she and Satya, still very much in residence, will be friends. But the relationship between the older and younger woman is far more complex. And, as India lurches toward independence, Sardarji struggles to find his place amidst the drastic changes. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, What the Body Remembers is at once poetic, political, feminist, and sensual.

Anchor

Told through the stories of two Punjabi women, Shauna Singh Baldwin's award-winning novel is a rich and multi-layered portrait of India's bloody struggle into independence.

What the Body Remembers

Contemporary

Black Swan.

Page edges tanned, owner's inscription. Shipped from the U.K. All orders received before 3pm sent that weekday.

World Literature

Shauna Singh Baldwin first heard of the mysterious story of Noor Inayat Khan (codename Madeleine) at The Safe House, an espionage-themed restaurant in Milwaukee. A former Dutch spy told her of the brave and beautiful Indo-American woman who left her family in London, England, to become a spy in Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War. The story immediately intrigued Baldwin, inspiring her to travel to Europe, seek out the places where Noor lived, interview the people who knew her, and discover more about the enigmatic woman. The Giller Prize finalist The Tiger Claw—Baldwin’s follow-up novel to her award-winning What the Body Remembers—was born from the silences, conflicting stories and significant gaps she discovered along the way. 
As the novel begins, we’re thrown into a bleak German prison cell with Noor, where she is shackled hand and foot and freezing from the winter’s cold. It is December 1943, the turning point in the war raging in Europe. Noor’s captor, Herr Vogel, allows her onionskin paper on which he directs her to write children’s stories. She does so, but also secretly writes letters to someone she addresses as "ma petite", the spirit of the child she had conceived with Armand Rivkin, a French Jewish musician and the love of her life. Although she must keep the letters hidden from her captor, it is through these words to her unborn child, alternating with a thrilling third-person narrative, that we learn Noor’s courageous and heartbreaking story. Noor’s mother is an American from Boston who married a Sufi musician and teacher from India. Growing up in France, Noor is extremely close with her liberal Muslim father, but when he dies, Noor's conservative uncle Tajuddin and her brother Kabir govern the family. Uncle Tajuddin and Kabir disapprove of Noor's love for Armand, and as the men of the family in 1930s France, they have the legal right to stop her engagement.

The Tiger Claw

Alfred A. Knopf. Canada

Shauna Singh Baldwin first heard of the mysterious story of Noor Inayat Khan (codename Madeleine) at The Safe House, an espionage-themed restaurant in Milwaukee. A former Dutch spy told her of the brave and beautiful Indo-American woman who left her family in London, England to become a spy in Nazi-occupied France during the Second World War. The story immediately intrigued Baldwin, inspiring her to travel to Europe, seek out the places where Noor lived, interview the people who knew her and discover more about the enigmatic woman. The Giller Prize finalist TheTiger Claw — Baldwin’s follow-up novel to her award-winning What The Body Remembers — was bornfrom the silences, conflicting stories and significant gaps she discovered along the way. As the novel begins, we’re thrown into a bleak German prison cell with Noor, where she is shackled hand and foot and freezing from the winter’s cold. It is December 1943, the turning point in the war raging in Europe. Noor’s captor, Herr Vogel, allows her onionskin paper on which he directs her to write children’s stories. She does so, but also secretly writes letters to someone she addresses as “ma petite,” the spirit of the child she had conceived with Armand Rivkin, a French Jewish musician and the love of her life. Although she must keep the letters hidden from her captor, it is through these words to her unborn child, alternating with a thrilling third-person narrative, that we learn Noor’s courageous and heartbreaking story. Noor’s mother is an American from Boston who married a Sufi musician and teacher from India. Growing up in France, Noor is extremely close with her liberal Muslim father, but when he dies, Noor’s conservative uncle Tajuddin and her brother Kabir govern the family. Uncle Tajuddin and Kabir disapprove of Noor’s love for Armand, and as the men of the family in 1930s France, they have the legal right to stop her engagement. Noor is faced then with the choice between defying her family and turning against her heart. She stops seeing Armand, but is devastated and lonely. Once the war begins, Noor’s family heads to England while Armand’s family stays. When Germany invades France, Noor despairs of ever seeing Armand again, until Kabir unwittingly introduces her to his new friend who is recruiting bilingual women for the resistance. Noor is offered training, and she accepts. She will help defeat the Germans, but her true purpose will be to find and reunite with Armand. As a resistance agent, Noor trains to be a radio operator, taking on a second identity — Nora Baker — one of many names she will eventually assume. When she arrives in France, she plays Anne-Marie Régnier — a woman caring for her sick aunt — and to other spies in her resistance network, she is known as “Madeleine.” She has secret rendezvous with other agents, transmits messages from various safe houses, and risks capture at every turn. She rents an apartment across the street from Drancy, the concentration camp where she knows Armand is being held. At great peril, she sends him a message — the tiger claw pendant she always wears for luck and courage. Noor must wade her way through oppression and hypocrisy from all sides: h her beloved Armand could be killed by the Germans at any time; her French and British colleagues fight the occupation of France while Britain still occupies India; she learns of dark family secrets; and, one by one, members of the spy network are being ratted out by a double agent. Betrayal can come from anyone. We know from the beginning that Noor will end up imprisoned, but who betrays her? Will she ever be released? Will Kabir find her? Will she and Armand be reunited? Baldwin paces the story like a nail-biting thriller, revealing only a little bit at a time. The Tiger Claw is packed with complex characters riding the line between good and evil. In the end, it is the reader who must be the judge, and decide where he or she stands.

Genre Fiction

Shauna Singh Baldwins passionate stories dramatize the lives of Indian women from 1919 to today, from India to Canada to the US. Through the eyes of these women adjusting to change, we see a world whose familiar rhythms mask dissonance and discordance. More overt is the ongoing struggle for the Sikh women in these stories to keep their identity and assert it — the massacres of Partition and 1984 are never far away. More subtle is the cost of integration into the new world, how colonialism survives in the minds of the colonized, and how these women confront the twin fear of freedom and fear of the other.” Moving from the inner sanctums of the family to the world of the office, subway and university, Baldwin lingers sensuously on the mundane surface of her characters’ lives: the jewel-like colours of turbans in the wash water, the shimmering bowls of cashews and almonds on a table, the worn magic of an abandoned house in Shimla. Slowly, almost innocuously, Baldwin reveals the unseen country her characters inhabit, only to allow this world to withdraw and emerge once again. However modern or westernized they might be, Baldwins characters are always outsiders who inhabit silence and learn to use it, sometimes as a refuge, sometimes as a weapon. Some remain prisoners of silence, choking on their own knowledge. Some use silence as a weapon against their oppressors. Others harness its power to seize their freedom. In Jassie,” an aging, dying Indian grandmother, a foreigner in her adopted country, helps another woman come to terms with death; in A Pair of Ears,” a servant-woman wreaks revenge on an old womans feckless son; in Nothing Must Spoil this Visit,” western and eastern women find unexpected candour and passion.

English Lessons and Other Stories

GLE Library

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Baldwin, Shauna Singh. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Baldwin, Shauna Singh

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Baldwin, Shauna Singh. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Selector of Souls

The Selector of Souls

What the Body Remembers: A Novel

What the Body Remembers: A Novel

What the Body Remembers

What the Body Remembers

What the Body Remembers

The Tiger Claw

The Tiger Claw

English Lessons and Other Stories