A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart (novel) Buffalo, NY
A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart follows an Indian revolutionary and white American student who unexpectedly fall in love in 1917 Palo Alto. The two are forced to flee across the country to New York City—and beyond—after they are accused of being spies for the Germans, all while America teeters on the brink of global war.
Nishant Batsha is a writer of fiction and history. He is the author of the debut novel Mother Ocean Father Nation (ecco, June 2022). He holds a PhD in history from Columbia University, where he studied Indian indentured servitude in the British Empire, as well as a master’s degree from the University of Oxford. His writing has been supported by the Prelinger Library, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. His work has been published in The Believer, Eater, The Offing, and elsewhere. He lives in Buffalo, New York with his family.