Rating: ***** 5 stars

Bali Rai,
City of Ghosts
Doubleday, 2009.

Ages 14+

The city is Amritsar, the holy city of the Sikhs in India, and the ghosts are the victims of a massacre carried out by British colonial forces in 1919, intended to suppress a growing insurgency by campaigners for Indian independence. The massacre is a real and infamous historical event, and it forms the climax of Bali Rai’s novel, at which the parallel but largely separate stories of his three main characters reach their very different endings. The three are friends. Bissen Singh is a young wounded veteran of service with the British in France during the First World War. Gurdial and Jeevan are younger – 16-year-old orphans growing up in Amritsar. Between them they have two love stories and one political misadventure. Bissen Singh longs for reunion with Lillian, an English nurse who cared for him and fell in love with him as he recovered from his war wounds in Brighton. Gurdial is in a seemingly hopeless love affair with Sohni, he a penniless low-caste orphan, she the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Jeevan, starved of affection, is lured into the dangerous company of a group of violent political agitators. Their stories intersect and overlap but are largely free-standing.

City of Ghosts is an experimental novel, mixing graphic realism and supernatural fantasy. Although Bali Rai in his Author’s Note disclaims any documentary accuracy for his book, his account of Bissen’s war experiences and of the Amritsar unrest has the stamp of authenticity. But there is also a guardian spirit, the ghost of a murdered woman, whose benevolent care for the three brings magic to the story, and Gurdial’s romance with Sohni has fairytale figures, including a wicked stepmother and an evil sorcerer. The mixture should not work, but it does, to powerful effect. Bali Rai has deep understanding of the conflicting cultures he depicts, and is a skilful and beguiling storyteller. His novel works admirably on several levels. Although two of his three chosen lives are fated to end sadly, the story as a whole is impressive, enjoyable and enlightening.

Peter Hollindale