“A complex coming-of-political-consciousness narrative . . . heady and fascinating . . . it’s obvious Singh knows her stuff. There’s much to chew on here.” —Publishers Weekly“Defiant, compassionate and compulsively readable, Earthly Playing Field finds an exquisite balance between speculative fiction and urgent political insight. That Singh deftly brings this all together into a thrilling narrative is a resounding testament to this writer's striking talents.” —Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for the Booker Prize“The novel of ideas is back and in spectacular shape. Radhika Singh crafts a rip-roaring adventure inside of a geopolitical graduate school seminar inside of a revolutionary handbook, wrapped in a tale of queer longing—a literary-Marxist turducken for the ages. This book makes you believe not only that the revolution is coming, but that it's winnable. Earthly Playing Field is a showcase of a radical and talented writer with a long and exciting career ahead of her.” —Alejandro Varela, author of Middle Spoon“Earthly Playing Field is not just a novel. It is a library of revolutionary possibility that meets us where we are and where we could be.” —Alexis Pauline Gumbs, author of Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde“One of the hallmarks of modernism was to separate the spiritual from the political. Given that the birth of modernism is deeply intertwined with colonialism, this separation also benefited the colonizers and the imperialists. In an act of resistance, Radhika Singh’s Earthly Playing Field beautifully bridges this artificial divide between the spiritual and the political and highlights that one cannot exist without the other.” —Haroon Khalid, author of Walking with Nanak “In beautiful, vivid prose, Singh creates a social, historical, and political tapestry that deftly undoes the tired common wisdom of our world. I haven't enjoyed a novel this much in a very long time.” —Steven Salaita, author of Daughter, Son, Assassin and Jerry and Rodrigo Go to War“This book set my heart on fire! Defiantly and deliciously romantic, Earthly Playing Field shakes the western literary construct of romance to give us something beyond the happily-ever-after: an ecstatic vision of Sufi love that amplifies our sense of possibility—of the world now and the world to come—with an ardent and transcendent yearning.” —Joanna Lowell, author of A Shore Thing“In the throes of a crumbling US empire, against the rubble and resistance of Gaza, when the horizon of imagination itself has become yet another surveilled border, Earthly Playing Field dares to envision and enact a post-revolutionary world.” —Ammiel Alcalay, author of Controlled Demolition“Lush, expansive and revolutionary in its vision, Singh imagines a moving global journey of resistance that harnesses the power of nature through mythic technology, against the fatal forces of imperialism. Written in luminous, philosophical prose, rife with wit, sharp political analysis and cyberpunk irreverence, the very nature of reality and spirit is unraveled. This left me with that old yearning, for a time untouched by colonialism or Partition; a yearning for us, as a collective, to experience radical love and syncretic, spiritual awakenings, despite the horrors that have shaped our lineages, our world. This is divine, daring work.” —Tanaïs, author of In Sensorium: Notes For My People, winner of the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction
