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Named a Washington Post Best Book of the Year
"The entire novel takes place over the course of a single morning... and the effect is devastatingly potent." —Marie Claire
When a woman—known only as Mother—moves her family from Atlanta to its wealthy suburbs, she discovers that neither the times nor the people have changed since her childhood in a small Southern town. Despite the intervening decades, Mother is met with the same questions: Where are you from? No, where are you really from? The American-born daughter of Bengali immigrants, she finds that her answer—Here—is never enough. Mother's simmering anger breaks through one morning, when, during a police raid on her home, she finally refuses to be complacent—and suffers all-too-familiar consequences.
"Devi S. Laskar's The Atlas of Reds and Blues is as narratively beautiful as it is brutal... I've never read a novel that does nearly as much in so few pages." —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
Genre: Literary Fiction
"The entire novel takes place over the course of a single morning... and the effect is devastatingly potent." —Marie Claire
When a woman—known only as Mother—moves her family from Atlanta to its wealthy suburbs, she discovers that neither the times nor the people have changed since her childhood in a small Southern town. Despite the intervening decades, Mother is met with the same questions: Where are you from? No, where are you really from? The American-born daughter of Bengali immigrants, she finds that her answer—Here—is never enough. Mother's simmering anger breaks through one morning, when, during a police raid on her home, she finally refuses to be complacent—and suffers all-too-familiar consequences.
"Devi S. Laskar's The Atlas of Reds and Blues is as narratively beautiful as it is brutal... I've never read a novel that does nearly as much in so few pages." —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"The Atlas of Reds and Blues is an unforgettable exploration of what it means to be a woman of color in contemporary America. Laskar describes the climate of lingering racism that surrounds her narrator and family in a wealthy suburb of Atlanta with a poet's touch. A searing, powerful, and beautifully written novel." - Jean Kwok
"A brown woman lies bleeding on the concrete. An agent of the state has shot her down in her own driveway. Her life - and the lives of her children, her whole family - spools out as she waits to find out if she will die. The Atlas of Reds and Blues is a triumph of book, mining the most searing art out of a horror pulled straight from current events. Devi S. Laskar announces herself as a brilliant, bold talent with her debut novel. This is a book that should be read, and discussed, and cherished." - Victor LaValle
"Devi S. Laskar's The Atlas of Reds and Blues is as narratively beautiful as it is brutal. In prose that moves between cushioning characters' falls and ushering our understandings of characters' utopias, Laskar creates a world where the consequences of American terror never stop reverberating. I've never read a novel that does nearly as much in so few pages. Laskar has changed how we will all write about state-sanctioned terror in this nation." - Kiese Laymon
"Devi S. Laskar has written a beautiful, harrowing fever dream of a novel. This is a book that insists in no uncertain terms and despite horrific institutional and everyday racism that South Asian Americans are indeed American. This is a book I have been waiting a very long time for. A monumental achievement." - Nayomi Munaweera
"A brown woman lies bleeding on the concrete. An agent of the state has shot her down in her own driveway. Her life - and the lives of her children, her whole family - spools out as she waits to find out if she will die. The Atlas of Reds and Blues is a triumph of book, mining the most searing art out of a horror pulled straight from current events. Devi S. Laskar announces herself as a brilliant, bold talent with her debut novel. This is a book that should be read, and discussed, and cherished." - Victor LaValle
"Devi S. Laskar's The Atlas of Reds and Blues is as narratively beautiful as it is brutal. In prose that moves between cushioning characters' falls and ushering our understandings of characters' utopias, Laskar creates a world where the consequences of American terror never stop reverberating. I've never read a novel that does nearly as much in so few pages. Laskar has changed how we will all write about state-sanctioned terror in this nation." - Kiese Laymon
"Devi S. Laskar has written a beautiful, harrowing fever dream of a novel. This is a book that insists in no uncertain terms and despite horrific institutional and everyday racism that South Asian Americans are indeed American. This is a book I have been waiting a very long time for. A monumental achievement." - Nayomi Munaweera
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