Summary

Farthest Field

An Indian Story of the Second World War
"The photographs of three young men stood in [the author's] grandmother's house ... beheld but never fully noticed. They had all fought in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. ... The years 1939-45 might be the most revered, deplored, and replayed in modern history. Yet India's extraordinary role has been concealed ... In riveting prose, Karnad retrieves the story of a single family ... and with it, the greater revelation that is India's Second World War. "Farthest Field" narrates the [forgotten] epic of India's war, in which the largest volunteer army in history fought for the British Empire even as its countrymen fought to be free of it. It carries us from Madras to Peshawar, Egypt to Burma - unfolding the saga of a young family amazed by their swiftly changing world and swept up in its violence." [Publisher's description on front flap.]