CATASTROPHE

In Megha Majumdar’s new novel “A Guardian and a Thief,” a cataclysmic climate event in the Bengali city of Kolkata has wiped out shelter and food supplies, leaving its citizens desperate and scrambling for survival. Among the families beset by the tragedy are Ma, her young daughter Mishti and Ma’s father Dadu. They are some of the fortunate ones, with approved passports to travel to the U.S., where Ma’s husband awaits them in Ann Arbor, Mich. But a brazen theft threatens their very existence.

“A Guardian and a Thief” is Majumdar’s follow-up to her critically acclaimed bestselling debut “A Burning.” We chatted with the author about white lies, the pleasures of anthropology and teaching as a form of learning.

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✍️ Author Chat

“A Guardian and a Thief” by Megha Majumdar

(Knopf)

Your novel takes place in Kolkata, which is your hometown. Why?

It’s one of the cities in the world which is most severely affected by climate change. I was reading about all of these grim predictions. Kolkata has grown significantly hotter and is predicted to endure more storms in the coming decades. Reading all of that was really sad, and it was really alarming. The book really grew out of these predictions about the future of the city.

Your character Boomba makes life very difficult for your family, yet he is really a victim of circumstance, right? Calamities can make good people do bad things.

This is the kind of question that got me into this book, which is, are there good people and monsters or do we contain elements of both in us? And is this revealed in a circumstance of scarcity and crisis? That’s the kind of question that I was very interested in. Boomba came to me initially as the thief of the title, but as I started writing more about him, I realized that it wouldn’t be truthful or interesting to simply make him the thief. He was more complex and I needed to write him with all of his complicated motivations and wishes and worries and regrets.

Everyone in the novel lies to some extent, whether it’s for self-preservation, or to protect their loved ones from being hurt.

I think it’s coming from love, actually, the loving function of lies and falsehoods. Anybody who has lived far away from home might find that this resonates with them: This feeling that when you are really far away from your loved ones, you need to assure them that you are OK, that things are all right. It’s a kind of love that you can offer them, because they cannot do anything to help you from so far away. So offering them falsehoods about how your circumstances are fine and they have nothing to worry about is an expression of love for them.

You studied anthropology in college. How did you move into fiction?

Anthropology is about the effort to understand [other people] while acknowledging that you can never fully know, that there are limits to how much any of us can understand another person’s life. That training, in listening for complexity in somebody else’s life story, and honoring the contradictions and intricacies of their life, and maintaining the humility to acknowledge that there are things about other people which will always remain mysterious to us — that space is so rich for a fiction writer.

You teach writing in the MFA program at Hunter College in New York. How does that feed into your work?

It’s what I loved about working as a book editor. Teaching feels beautifully related to editorial work, because, once again, I am close to other writers. I’m close to their text, I am thinking with them through the questions of what this text is accomplishing. And I love having the opportunity to think through failures of prose with other incredibly smart and creative and ambitious writers. When I say failure, there’s nothing bad or stressful about it. I fail in my writing all the time. Failure is part of the process. Being able to look at those failures and ask, what is happening here is very useful.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Twenty-five years after “Almost Famous” put his origin story on movie screens, Cameron Crowe (left, with Robert Plant) reflects on his roots as a teenage music journalist.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Valorie Castellanos Clark writes that “The Radical Fund,” John Fabian Witt’s book about a Jazz Age millionaire who gave his money away is a “meticulous” story of “the ways a modest fund endowed by a reluctant heir managed to reshape American civil rights in less than 20 years.”

Nine years after “Go Set a Watchman” published, Robert Allen Papinchak reviews Harper Lee’s latest, “The Land of Sweet Forever,” a collection of stories and essays from the late author, calling it “a rewarding addition and resource to the slim canon of her literary legacy.”

Leigh Haber is entranced with Gish Jen’s new novel “Bad Bad Girl,” about a fraught mother-daughter relationship, calling the book “suffused with love and a desire to finally understand.”

Finally, Mikael Wood chatted with filmmaker Cameron Crowe about his new memoir, “The Uncool.” Says Crowe of his journalism days, “I did an interview with Bob Dylan for Los Angeles magazine, and I got it so wrong that they didn’t publish it.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

Vroman’s Bookstore is on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Nine months after the Eaton fire, Vroman’s Bookstore continues to be a cherished haven for local residents. The store still vibrates with bookish energy as it continues its ambitious fundraising outreach campaigns for fire victims. We chatted with the store’s chief executive, Julia Cowlishaw, about how things are going at the beloved Pasadena institution.

Nine months after the fire, how is business?

Business has been steady this year and we’re pleased with that, given all the variables in the world.

What books are selling right now?

The new releases this fall are fabulous, and we are seeing a broad range of interests. In nonfiction there’s a lot of interest in trying to understand current events from historical perspectives and Jill Lepore’s “We the People” is one example on our bestseller list. Since it is fall, the list of cookbooks is amazing and Samin Nosrat’s new cookbook “Good Things” along with her older book “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” make great gifts. In fiction, Ian McEwan, Kiran Desai, Thomas Pynchon and Lily King’s new novels are popular, so literary fiction is alive and well.

How important has the store been for the community in such a challenging year?

Bookstores, including Vroman’s, have long been recognized as a third place in their communities. A third place gives people a space to come together with friends and family over a shared interest and a fine sense of community. That sense of community became even more important after the fires, and it was so important for us to be more than a bookstore and give back to our community in every way we could. Our community really responded by helping us raise money for several community foundations, and collect books and supplies for people impacted by the fires.

Vroman’s Bookstore is at 695 E. Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena.

Eighty years ago, on August 6 1945, the sky over Hiroshima lit up with the cataclysmic explosion of the atomic bomb Little Boy; a light that was not a sunrise of hope, but a shadow of death and destruction, reducing over 140,000 people to ashes in an instant. This tragedy became a lasting symbol of nuclear horror, a permanent warning to humanity: the power of nuclear weapons can obliterate civilisation entirely.

Now, on the anniversary of that catastrophe, the United States, through attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and escalating confrontations with Russia, is steering the world toward the precipice of a “Hiroshima II.” These actions, which threaten the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and raise the risk of nuclear war to unprecedented levels, endanger global peace and reveal a dangerous shift in Washington’s foreign policy; one that could imperil the very future of humanity.

Attack on Iran: A blow to diplomacy and a spark for nuclear proliferation

On June 22, 2025, the skies over Iran thundered with Tomahawk missiles and stealth B-2 bombers targeting the Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities in an operation dubbed “Midnight Hammer.” Occurring amid the short-lived Iran-Israel conflict from 13 to 24 June 2025, this strike was described by US President Donald Trump as a “decisive victory” to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet reports tell a different story: the attack only delayed Iran’s nuclear program by a few months, as the country had already secured enriched uranium in safe locations.

The roots of this aggression trace back to the controversial US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) in 2018. Subsequent reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2025 indicated that Iran had enriched uranium to 60 per cent, still below the 90 percent threshold needed for weapons-grade material. Pressure from Israel, especially information presented by Benjamin Netanyahu in February 2025, pushed Washington toward this military strike. But this first direct military assault on another nation’s nuclear program since World War II had profound consequences: Iran suspended cooperation with the IAEA and announced it would no longer adhere to NPT restrictions.

The US attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities didn’t just torch years of diplomatic efforts; it’s pushed the world to the edge of a nuclear abyss. Since 1968, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has stood on three shaky legs: stopping the spread of nukes, disarming those who have them, and ensuring nuclear energy stays peaceful. Now, Washington’s unilateral move threatens to kick those legs out from under it. Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, didn’t mince words: the strike could “bring the entire non-proliferation system crashing down.” Iran, now more determined than ever, might follow North Korea’s playbook, chasing nuclear weapons with renewed vigor. That could set off a domino effect, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or even Egypt eyeing their own nuclear arsenals to keep the regional balance from tipping.

From the collapse of nuclear order to human catastrophe

The fallout from America’s strike stretches far beyond the Middle East. By undermining the NPT, it’s fanned the flames of global nuclear ambition. Allies like South Korea, Japan, and Poland, long sheltered under the US nuclear umbrella, might start questioning their reliance on Washington and consider going their own way. In the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the UAE could hit the gas on their own nuclear programs, risking a full-blown arms race across the region.

At the 2025 Hiroshima memorial, Mayor Kazumi Matsui sounded the alarm, warning that “nuclear weapons are becoming normalized” amid crises in Ukraine and the Middle East. The Hiroshima Survivors’ Association, known as Nihon Hidankyo and honored with a Nobel Peace Prize, slammed the US for ignoring the scars of Hiroshima’s past. Pope Leo XIV and UN chief António Guterres issued a rare joint plea, urging a return to diplomacy and warning that nukes are once again tools of intimidation, not deterrence.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reports that 2025 has ushered in a new arms race, with defense budgets ballooning and nuclear stockpiles getting modern makeovers. In this tinderbox, one misstep, whether a rash decision or a simple miscalculation, could spark a disaster that wipes out millions and leaves the planet’s ecosystems in ruins for centuries.

The urgent need for multilateral diplomacy

History proves that nuclear stability hinges on global cooperation, not cowboy bravado. Treaties like the NPT and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) only worked when big players respected each other’s red lines. The US strike on Iran, coupled with escalating tensions with Russia, spits in the face of that principle, shoving the world toward chaos. The only way out is to swap bombs for talks. Urgent negotiations, pulling in Iran, Russia, China, Europe, and others, are the last hope for shoring up the non-proliferation system and cooling global tempers.

Eighty years after Hiroshima, the world faces a gut-check moment. The US, which unleashed the first nuclear horror, is now steering humanity toward another with its reckless policies. Hiroshima taught us that nuclear weapons don’t bring security or triumph, only devastation. If this path continues, the next Hiroshima won’t be one city but the entire globe, with no one left to bear witness.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.