Geetanjali Shree's 'Our City, That Year' Reviewed: A Tale of Religious Identity

Mark Rappolt reviews Geetanjali Shree's novel 'Our City, That Year', translated by Daisy Rockwell and published by Tilted Axis. The book, inspired by the 1992 destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, follows Hanif, a Muslim, and his Hindu wife Shruti in an unnamed Indian city experiencing escalating religious tensions. The narrative explores how individuals become symbols of their religions, as the narrator notes, 'Sometimes it was we who turned ourselves into Hindus and Muslims. Sometimes it was you.' Hanif and Shruti rent from Dadu, whose son Sharad is Hanif's colleague and best friend, a relationship tested by the unfolding events. The characters, intellectuals, struggle to write as words become 'utterly useless… empty like government slogans' amid populist identitarian politics. The novel's fragmentary structure, presented as copied conversations by an anonymous narrator, raises questions about trust and interpretation. The title's possessive pronoun 'our' is deliberately ambiguous, leaving readers uncertain about identity and belonging. Rappolt praises the novel as essential for demonstrating how easily the world can be manipulated and for urging readers to speak out against such manipulation. The review appears in the Spring 2025 issue of ArtReview Asia.