The author Bapsi Sidhwa, who has died aged 86, was one of the first English-language authors from Pakistan to receive international acclaim. With her five novels, she gave readers across the English-speaking world an insight into the Parsi community from which she came, as well as a child’s-eye view of the horrors of partition in 1947.
Her breakthrough novel, Ice Candy Man (1988), published as Cracking India in the US (1991), was her most autobiographical. The young narrator, Lenny, who has polio as Sidhwa was herself did, navigates the partition of the Indian subcontinent with a mix of innocence and keen observation. Critics appreciated her ability to blend personal narrative with larger historical forces, creating a rich, multilayered narrative.
