“A stunning chronicle of an Indian woman’s coming-of-age... This is electrifying.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Is this a ghost story?” Meena asked the barber’s wife who told the tale. “I don’t want to hear scary stories one night before I marry.”

 “Not all ghost stories are scary,” said the barber’s wife, laughing at Meena. “Besides, we have a long time before us, and stories are little baskets to carry time away in.”

Exquisitely written, a blend of ghost stories, myths, and song, The Woman Who Climbed Trees is a haunting, deeply felt multi-generational family saga that illuminates the transitional nature of women’s lives and the feeling of loss they experience, as they give up one home and family to become part of another.

When Meena enters an arranged marriage with a man from Nepal, she must leave behind her family and home in India to forge a new identity in a strange place. A moving work of South Asian literature, The Woman Who Climbed Trees follows her, the women who surround her, and the daughter she eventually raises, as they carefully navigate the uncertain tides of their diasporic lives in this powerful coming-of-age story.

This unforgettable literary fiction explores: