Describes how a cycle of rioting and violence leading up to the partition of India and birth of Pakistan resulted in brutal and widespread ethnic cleansing on both sides of the border, creating a divide between India and Pakistan that persists decades later.

A stunning first novel, set during the violent 1947 partition of India, about uprooted children and their journeys to safety. As India is rent into two nations, communal violence breaks out on both sides of the new border and streaming hordes of refugees flee from blood and chaos. At an overrun train station, Shankar and Keshav, twin Hindu boys, lose sight of their mother and join the human mass to go in search of her. A young Sikh girl, Simran...