Mother Ocean Father Nation: Author Nishant Batsha in conversation with Roanne Kantor
Stanford Global Studies Division
615 Crothers Way, Stanford, CA 94305
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Join us for a book talk with author Nishant Batsha who will be in conversation with Roanne Kantor, Assistant Professor of English and, by courtesy, of Comparative Literature at Stanford University.
Register for the in-person event here. Registration is required and will be capped once at capacity.
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About the Book
On a small Pacific island, a brother and sister tune in to a breaking news radio bulletin. It is 1985, and an Indian grocer has just been attacked by nativists aligned with the recent military coup. Now, fear and shock are rippling through the island’s deeply-rooted Indian community as racial tensions rise to the brink.
Bhumi hears this news from her locked-down dorm room in the capital city. She is the ambitious, intellectual standout of the family—the one destined for success. But when her friendship with the daughter of a prominent government official becomes a liability, she must flee her unstable home for California.
Jaipal feels like the unnoticed, unremarkable sibling, always left to fend for himself. He is stuck working in the family store, avoiding their father’s wrath, with nothing but his hidden desires to distract him. Desperate for money and connection, he seizes a sudden opportunity to take his life into his own hands for the first time. But his decision leaves him at the mercy of an increasingly volatile country.
Spanning from the lush terrain of the South Pacific to the golden hills of San Francisco, Mother Ocean Father Nation is an entrancing debut about how one family, at the mercy of a nation broken by legacies of power and oppression, forges a path to find a home once again.
Learn more about the book here.
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About the Author
Nishant Batsha is a writer of fiction and histories. He is the author of the novel Mother Ocean Father Nation (Ecco/HarperCollins), named one of the best books of 2022 by NPR. He is currently at work on A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2025), a novel set between California and New York at the dawn of World War I. He holds a PhD in history from Columbia University and a master’s degree from the University of Oxford. His academic research focused on Indian indentured labor in Trinidad and Fiji. He lives in Buffalo, NY with his wife and two children.
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This event is part of Stanford Global Studies’ Oceanic Imaginaries, a new, multi-year initiative that adopts the world’s oceans as an analytical framework for advancing cross-regional, interdisciplinary research on timely global topics.