Married as a child bride to Nathan, a tenant farmer she had never met, Rukmani works side by side in the fields with her husband to wrest a living from a land ravaged by droughts, monsoons, and insects. With fortitude and courage, she fights poverty and disaster.

Written over 70 years ago, Nectar in a Sieve is as relevant now as when it was first published. The story of Rukmani and Nathan is the story of many Indian farmers yesterday and today. This new edition introduces a new generation of readers to a tragic tale made all the more relevant as temperatures soar in India and working the land becomes more and more challenging.

Review for The Nowhere Man in 2019, 'For the last 20 years of her life, Kamala Markandaya couldn't get published and went out of print. Generations of readers lost out in reading this gem. Now I hope it will find its place in literary history' [Booker prize-winner Bernadine Evaristo]

Kamala Markandaya (1924 – 2004) was born in Mysore, India. She studied history at Madras University and later worked for a small progressive magazine before moving to London in 1948 in pursuit of a career in journalism. There she began writing. Nectar in a Sieve, her first novel published in 1954, was an international best-seller, translated into 17 languages. The Nowhere Man - originally published in 1972 and the only novel Markandaya wrote about England – describes the everyday racism experienced by immigrants on a South London street. Her 1969 novel, The Coffer Dams, is a prophetic novel set in India about the attempt to tame nature with disastrous results. Her three novels are now available in new editions from Small Axes. An essential figure in the post-colonial cannon.