A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart

“Love is its own act of resistance in repressive times. Here romantic passion combines with revolution in a historical fiction sure to light up readers’ rebel hearts.” – Los Angeles Times

“Batsha’s novel of love and revolution is set in 1917, but its depiction of racism, government overreach and feverish patriotism feels painfully relevant in 2025.” – Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Lyrical and ambitious… . Batsha’s deep historic research informs the portraits of his protagonists, who bear similarities to anti-colonial feminist Evelyn Trent and her husband, M.N. Roy, and the novel pulls off a tricky balancing act between florid romance … and freewheeling modernism… . This one leaves a mark.” – Publishers Weekly

“Loosely based upon the real-life romance of Mexican Communist Party founder M.N. Roy and his first wife, journalist Evelyn Trent, A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart chronicles the interior and exterior lives of a couple under siege. Batsha… is the perfect person to tell it. Despite being set over 100 years ago, many of the novel’s themes are strikingly contemporary….But perhaps best of all, the book re-establishes the real-life Trent–if only metaphorically–in the annals of contemporary history….Batsha’s vivid portrayal of the couple provides a glimpse into a fascinating and largely unknown chapter in America’s past.” – BookPage

“An absorbing account of the romance between an idealistic Stanford graduate student and an Indian revolutionary in 1917.” – Alta Journal

“A novel that pulses with urgency and love. Batsha deftly navigates the terrain between personal identity and political upheaval, crafting a story that is as much about the intricacies of love as the fight for justice. His characters are fully alive, with worlds richly drawn and choices hauntingly real. This book challenges and compels, asking us to consider what we’re willing to sacrifice for what we hold dear. It resonates long after its last page, giving us more than enough time to put back together the very universal thing this story destroyed in order to fix: our hearts. Unforgettable.” – Morgan Talty, national bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez and Fire Exit

“Nishant Batsha’s A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart is a brilliant, important, and genuinely thrilling new novel. It’s a story of love, anticolonial struggle, and fierce intellectual inquiry written in supple and lovely prose, with characters who are informed by the historical record, deeply imagined, and utterly alive. Batsha has given us a forgotten chapter of radical South Asian history, a meticulously drawn portrait of a century-ago California, and a fiercely moving work of art. We are lucky to have him writing today.” – Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of All This Could Be Different

“A beautifully written novel about love and revolution. Intellectual and ambitious, A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart transports us to over a century ago, a time full of possibilities, challenging ideas of the nation state and identity that deeply resonate with our present moment.” – Akil Kumarasamy, author of Meet Us by the Roaring Sea

“Love and politics collide in A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart. With characters ripped right from history, this anti-colonial romance has it all.” – Malcolm Harris, national bestselling author of What’s Left and Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World

Nishant Batsha is the author of the novel Mother Ocean Father Nation, named a finalist for a 2023 Lambda Literary Award and listed as one the best books of 2022 by NPR, among other honors. He lives in Buffalo, New York, with his family.