When I Hit You

The widely acclaimed novel of an abused woman in India and her fight for freedom: “A triumph.” —The Guardian

Named a Best Book of the Year by the Financial Times, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, and the Observer
Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction
Longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize
Shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize

Based on the author’s own experience, When I Hit You follows the narrator as she falls in love with a university professor and agrees to be his wife. Soon, the newlywed experiences extreme violence at her husband’s hands and finds herself socially isolated. Yet hope keeps her alive. Writing becomes her salvation, a supreme act of defiance, in a harrowing yet fierce and funny novel that not only examines one woman’s battle against terror and loneliness but reminds us how fiction and stories can help us escape.