Book Review: All Those Who Wander by Kiran Manral

First of all, let me applaud this book’s alluring premise, which made me take it up for review. I stopped book reviews a long time ago. But now I am back reviewing this mind-bending novel that takes its readers on an ecstatic journey through space and time. I couldn’t encompass the story within one genre – there’s science fiction, horror, romance, philosophy, and thriller packed into one book. It’s a total package for someone looking for something new to read in Indian writing.

I haven’t read any of Kiran Manral’s previous works. So, I was totally mind-blown by her narration which was lyrical, flowery, empathetic, and intense. Though the core theme is science fiction as it involves a lot of time travel and futuristic scenes, there is this deep story of a woman who had a traumatic childhood and a romance that acts as a much-needed breather. Kiran adopts a non-linear narrative that you’d keep wondering how the chapters are interconnected. But it is her astounding prose that draws you in right from the first chapter.

The protagonist is Ana who is also known as Nayna and sometimes as Sue (though we can assume that she is a different person). Ana can travel through time and space involuntarily just by looking at her reflection in any mirror. She is flung into her own past and future mercilessly, while she can also travel through multiverses, meeting multiple versions of herself. She tries to change her fate by pulling out one of her versions and putting them in another universe. Is she successful? How are the other versions of her intertwined with her own life? These are some of the questions that the book might answer or might not.

The major part of the book traces the lives of Ana’s different versions in a non-linear narrative. You might be reading the end of one version’s story while another might stare right at you in the next chapter. That’s how the chapters are woven, but the transition from one setting to another is seamless. Kiran peppers the whole story with so many quotable paragraphs that if I was reading the Kindle version I’d have definitely highlighted many passages. One profound paragraph that stuck to me was –

Time was languid summer afternoons filled with mindless sucking on white and black striped boiled sweets that left the tongue a gruesome black, stealing pieces of raw mango from the sheets spread out on the terrace to dry out for pickling. Time was the summer breeze that blew in from the sea bearing microscopic motes from lives unknown across the ocean, loves and longings unknown to those who would breathe them in on this side of the water. Time was this moment and the moment running alongside it, and yet the other running towards both from the opposite side, all destined to collide with each other.

Reviewed by Kavya Janani

Read the entire review here: https://kavyajanani.wordpress.com/2023/03/12/book-review-all-those-who-wander-by-kiran-manral/