A People's History of Heaven

Mathangi Subramanian

Mar 2019 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Jeed Saddy

About this audiobook

Welcome to Heaven, a thirty-year-old slum hidden between brand-new high-rise apartment buildings and technology incubators in contemporary Bangalore, one of India's fastest-growing cities. In Heaven, you will come to know a community of people living hand-to-mouth and constantly struggling against the city government who wants to bulldoze their homes and build yet more glass high-rises. These families, men and women, young and old, gladly support one another, sharing whatever they can. A People's History of Heaven centers on five best friends, girls who go to school together, a diverse group who love and accept one another unconditionally, pulling one another through crises and providing emotional, physical, and financial support. Together they wage war on the bulldozers that would bury their homes, and, ultimately, on the city that does not care what happens to them. This is a story about geography, history, and strength, about love and friendship, about fighting for the people and places we love-even if no one else knows they exist. Elegant, poetic, bursting with color, Mathangi Subramanian's novel is a moving and celebratory story of girls on the cusp of adulthood who find joy just in the basic act of living.

About the author

Mathangi Subramanian is an award-winning Indian American writer, author, and educator. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Teachers College of Columbia University, and is the recipient of a Fulbright and other fellowships. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Quartz, Al Jazeera America, and elsewhere.

Jeed Saddy is a mother of four who studied voice-over and improv in San Francisco and now resides in the Los Angeles area.