--- title: Personal Gets Political in 'All the Lives We Never Lived' description: Anuradha Roy's new novel, All the Lives We Never Lived ties personal and political ideas during the fight for independence in India. canonical: https://time.com/5448809/all-the-lives-we-never-lived-book-review/ author: Naina Bajekal article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-11-08T11:41:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T21:58:58.837Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The Personal Gets Political in the Masterful New Novel 'All the Lives We Never Lived' og:description: Roy skillfully navigates the gender politics enmeshed in India’s battle og:url: https://time.com/5448809/all-the-lives-we-never-lived-book-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0f55740829ff7d34/69893e908fd2eed17235d157/all-the-lives-we-never-lived-novel-long-lost-mom-letter.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: all-the-lives-we-never-lived-novel-long-lost-mom-letter og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Personal Gets Political in the Masterful New Novel 'All the Lives We Never Lived' twitter:description: Roy skillfully navigates the gender politics enmeshed in India’s battle twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0f55740829ff7d34/69893e908fd2eed17235d157/all-the-lives-we-never-lived-novel-long-lost-mom-letter.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Personal Gets Political in the Masterful New Novel _All the Lives We Never Lived_ > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Naina Bajekal](https://time.com/author/naina-bajekal/)  ## Naina Bajekal Bajekal was executive editor and international editor at TIME. Nov 8, 2018 11:41 AM UTC  Roy lives in Ranikhet, a remote hill town in the Himalayas Roy lives in Ranikhet, a remote hill town in the HimalayasStephane Grangier—Corbis/Getty Images  by [Naina Bajekal](https://time.com/author/naina-bajekal/)  ## Naina Bajekal Bajekal was executive editor and international editor at TIME. Nov 8, 2018 11:41 AM UTC Partway through Anuradha Roy’s _All the Lives We Never Lived_, the German artist Walter Spies makes the case for simply enjoying life in India amid the global upheaval of the 1930s. “We are oceans away from all that,” he says. Another character disagrees: “The world is round and oceans meet. No place is safe from evil.” Roy interlaces the local and the global in her new novel, which opens as Myshkin, a horticulturalist in his mid-60s, receives a letter “pulsating with the energy of every unopened letter in the world.” As Myshkin reflects on his childhood in the fictional Himalayan village of Muntazir (which translates to “the one who is waiting impatiently”), readers join him on a quest to find out why his mother Gayatri left him when he was 9 years old. Roy’s intensely visual prose carries the narrative as it flits from 1917 to the 1930s and 1990s. Freed from the demands of historical authenticity, she brings together real-life figures–including Spies, English ballet dancer Beryl de Zoete and the poet Rabindranath Tagore–with her fictional ones to create a luminous world. _All the Lives We Never Lived_ is Roy’s fourth novel, coming a decade after her first, _An Atlas of Impossible Longing_, which was translated into 18 languages. Her third, _Sleeping on Jupiter_, a tale of three elderly women on a pilgrimage to a temple, made the Man Booker Prize long list in 2015. In this new book, Roy is grappling with bigger themes–freedom, nationalism and nature–against the turbulent backdrop of India’s fight for independence and World War II. Her mastery of detail ties an intimate domestic drama to national history, offering a portrait of one family’s troubles with desire and loss that speaks to the more universal struggles for personal and political freedom. Roy skillfully navigates the gender politics enmeshed in India’s battle for self-determination, writing with great compassion for Gayatri, who had “fallen as low as a woman could” by leaving behind her husband, child and home. The character laments her duty to stay at home instead of pursuing her own dreams: “What good will the nation’s freedom do for me? Tell me that! Will it make me free?” With her characteristically light touch, Roy shows how the world applauds men’s political acts and overlooks their domestic behavior, a luxury rarely afforded to women who chase their own desires. Roy’s focus is imperfect–at one point she veers into a marginal tale of the real-life Bengali poet Maitreyi Devi, whose life somewhat mirrors Gayatri’s–but her prose is always captivating. As told by Myshkin, the book thrums with the anxiety of waiting. The reader is propelled through the pages, impatient to find out what happened to the grown man’s mother, to discover what her letters contain. Roy’s skillful blending–of fact and fiction, of personal and political, and of suspense and reward–creates a rich and layered read. But the modern resonances of rising nationalism, in India and beyond, ensure that Roy’s story of what happened in Muntazir transcends its own pages. “Once the letter was read,” Myshkin says, “it would be over and I would have to start waiting again.” It’s a feeling readers may well share. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5448809/all-the-lives-we-never-lived-book-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5448809/all-the-lives-we-never-lived-book-review/"},"headline":"The Personal Gets Political in the Masterful New Novel All the Lives We Never Lived","datePublished":"2018-11-08T11:41:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T21:58:58.837Z","description":"Anuradha Roy's new novel, All the Lives We Never Lived ties personal and political ideas during the fight for independence in India.","url":"https://time.com/5448809/all-the-lives-we-never-lived-book-review/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0f55740829ff7d34/69893e908fd2eed17235d157/all-the-lives-we-never-lived-novel-long-lost-mom-letter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Naina Bajekal","jobTitle":"Bajekal was executive editor and international editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/naina-bajekal/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0f55740829ff7d34/69893e908fd2eed17235d157/all-the-lives-we-never-lived-novel-long-lost-mom-letter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"all-the-lives-we-never-lived-novel-long-lost-mom-letter","caption":"Roy lives in Ranikhet, a remote hill town in the Himalayas","creditText":"Stephane Grangier—Corbis/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5448809/all-the-lives-we-never-lived-book-review/","name":"The Personal Gets Political in the Masterful New Novel All the Lives We Never Lived"}}]}] ```