Two Lives

"The heartrending story of a two people, a marriage, and a century from the author of A Suitable Boy. . . . “[A] thoughtful, evocative, moving book.”—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World

Two Lives is an extraordinary tapestry of India, the Third Reich and the Second World War, Auschwitz and the Holocaust, Israel and Palestine, postwar Germany and 1970s Britain. Part biography, part memoir, part meditation on our times, here is a masterful work from one of our greatest living writers.

In this magnificent, tender story, Vikram Seth offers both a history of a violent century as well as an intimate portrait of an unlikely friendship, marriage, and abiding yet complex love: that of his beloved uncle, Shanti Behari Seth, an immigrant from India, and his aunt, Helga Gerda Caro, a German Jew who was forced to flee her homeland by the Nazis. 

With Two Lives, Seth has written "a truly heroic tale which demonstrates just how much can sometimes be achieved against monstrous odds." (Washington Times)

A heartrending new book -- the story of a marriageand the story of two lives -- from the author of theinternational bestselling novel A Suitable Boy

Shanti Behari Seth was born on the eighth day of the eighth month in the eighth year of the twentieth century; he died two years before its close. He was brought up in India in the apparently vigorous but dying Raj and was sent by his family in the 1930s to Berlin -- though he could not speak a word of German -- to study medicine and dentistry. It was here, before he migrated to Britain, that Shanti's path first crossed that of his future wife.

Helga Gerda Caro, known to everyone as "Henny" was also born in 1908, in Berlin, to a Jewish family -- cultured, patriotic, and intensely German. When the family decided to take Shanti as a lodger, Henny's first reaction was, "Don't take the black man!" But a friendship flowered, and when Henny fled Hitler's Germany for England just one month before war broke out, she was met at Victoria Station by the only person in the country she knew: Shanti.

Vikram Seth has woven together their astonishing story, which recounts the arrival into this childless couple's lives of their great-nephew from India -- the teenage student Vikram Seth. The result is an extraordinary tapestry of India, the Third Reich and the Second World War, Auschwitz and the Holocaust, Israel and Palestine, postwar Germany and 1970s Britain.

Two Lives is both a history of a violent century seen through the eyes of two survivors and an intimate portrait of their friendship, marriage, and abiding yet complex love. Part biography, part memoir, part meditation on our times, this is the true tale of two remarkable lives -- a masterful telling from one of our greatest living writers.

“A deeply engaging . . . beautiful book . . . These two individuals, from widely divergent religious and cultural backgrounds, bring together on a larger plane two important national stories of the twentieth century: India during the years of division between and discord among Hindus and Muslims, and Germany under the anti-Semitic Nazi regime.” - Booklist (starred review)

“Seth turns biography into powerful literature, distilling the universal human emotions of passion, grief and the will to survive.” - Denver Post

"The heartrending story of a two people, a marriage, and a century from the author of A Suitable Boy. . . . “[A] thoughtful, evocative, moving book . . . [Seth] is an amazingly gifted, accomplished, resourceful and charming writer.” - Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World

“Seth is a meticulous biographer . . . Two Lives is more than a touching family memoir. His great-uncle Shanti and great-aunt Henny’s lives neatly spanned the past century and World War II, which both devastated them and brought them together . . . Having set their lives out, unvarnished and un-prettified, in robust health and decrepit decay, Seth makes them better than great. He makes them human.” - San Francisco Chronicle

“Page-turning momentum that’s reminiscent of Tolstoy . . . Seth paints a portrait of a generation on a vast canvas, shining a light on the struggle to survive in Europe during and after ‘the war.’ It is a compulsively readable memoir about one family’s destiny.” - Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin)

“I cannot remember ever being quite so moved by a memoir, as I have been by Vikram Seth’s wonderfully composed and unutterably tender story of his beloved Uncle Shanti and Aunt Henny. We have long known the author as being one of the most memorable voices in contemporary literature, and so we expected much from this long-anticipated book: his achievement has exceeded all possible expectations.” - Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author

"Wonderful . . . A truly heroic tale which demonstrates just how much can sometimes be achieved against monstrous odds.” - Washington Times

“Full of affection and tenderness . . . An unfailingly respectful memoirist.” - Anita Desai, New York Review of Books

“[A] beautiful, loving, clear-eyed book . . . What Seth has done here is draw multiple paths between now and then, between pre-war and post-war, between visceral personal details and the big historical picture . . . Seth lays all this out in a translucent, telling prose.” - Seattle Times

“Sensitive and compassionate. [Seth’s] prose fulfills the obligation Primo Levi once defined for writers on the Holocaust: it is unadorned and clear.” - Pankaj Mishra, New York Times Book Review

“A great love story, involving two remarkable people.” - New York Times

“Eloquent and elegiacal . . . An intricate study of the way lives and worlds can intertwine . . . [Two Lives] also tells the story of the Holocaust from a new angle.” - Los Angeles Book Review

“An immensely moving narrative . . . Seth’s voice is a fluent, graceful and compassionate one, and the story he tells—in a sense, it’s every family’s story—should have irresistible appeal. Another triumph for one the most versatile and engaging of all contemporary writers.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“One of the most remarkable biographies since, well, the 18th century, when James Boswell profiled Samuel Johnson.” - Time International

“A subtle portrait of the complexities of a long companionship . . . A wonderful book.” - The Economist

“Extraordinary . . . Readers who get a thrill out of seeing a thoughtful, engrossing narrative teased out of seemingly ordinary lives will find this remarkable book offers rich rewards.” - Entertainment Weekly

“Engaging . . . Even as you enjoy one [story], you discover another within . . . There’s an unlikely story of a love which endured more than five decades . . . A compelling sketch of life in Nazi Germany . . . The writer’s loving—yet probing—examination of Shanti and Henny as human beings . . . By the time you close this book you will find that you miss them.” - Christian Science Monitor