Title: A Guardian and a Thief
Author: Megha Majumdar
Publisher: Knopf
Publication Date: October 14, 2025
Category: Literary Fiction / Speculative / Near-Future
When a desperate thief steals the only chance a mother has to escape a drowning Kolkata, a single week becomes a gripping contest of survival, sacrifice, and ferocious love.
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar is set in a near future that feels eerily recognizable, where climate change has ravaged the world and reshaped daily life. Kolkata, swollen with refugees fleeing their own devastated homelands, is the uneasy heart of the story. Bottled water left in the sun boils, heat stroke is common, and touching the pavement with bare skin can cause severe burns. Food prices soar, and even simple vegetables like cauliflower are scarce. We meet Ma, Dadu, and little Mishti on the day they finally secure passports to join Baba in Michigan and escape the city’s growing famine. Their flight is scheduled in just seven days. The next morning they wake to find Ma’s purse, along with nearly all their food, stolen. Will they make it out?
The story unfolds in prose that is both beautiful and lyrical while remaining easily understandable throughout. The reader never knows exactly how far into the near future we are, yet so many details feel true to life as it is now that the world becomes completely plausible. This is what makes speculative fiction, to me, scarier than horror: it is easy to imagine your own family forced to seek refuge elsewhere, your own children needing a safer place and a better quality of life. Narrated in third person, the tale unwinds like a ball of wire rolling downhill, gathering speed as gravity takes hold, until the wire is stretched taut and it becomes clear that something must finally give.
The characters, aside from little Mishti, are morally ambiguous and deeply complex. No one is perfect, and that is one of the novel’s greatest strengths. I felt as if I could truly know Ma, Dadu, and even Boomba. The horror Ma and her family experience when they discover her purse missing is almost physically palpable, and Boomba’s desperate longing to provide for his hardworking parents and beloved younger brother feels just as real. Their struggles are painfully relatable: they face a time of deep hardship where the best choices must be made from the worst options, highlighting the extremes people will go to for their loved ones. It is all so intensely human. As I greedily turned the pages, I realized the line between guardian and thief was always shifting. There is no clear good or bad, only varying degrees of both interwoven. We witness some of humanity’s worst moments, but also some of its best, and with each page we are never entirely sure which we will find.
I was deeply moved by this story, sometimes chuckling, other times horrified and heartbroken. It is easy to see why this novel has been longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction, as it is hands down the best I have read all year. I could rave about it endlessly, but realistically it will not be everyone’s cup of tea. I would especially recommend it to readers who enjoy stories about characters faced with impossible choices; fans of Jodi Picoult may find this tale compelling, particularly if they are drawn to foreign settings. I would also recommend it to parents who enjoy horror, since there are moments of genuine fear that feel frighteningly possible. And finally, I would suggest that anyone intrigued by the premise give it a try. It is not a long read, and I believe it is well worth your time.
Nerd Rating: 🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓 – A taut, unforgettable novel that proves speculative fiction can be more chilling than horror.
Let’s discuss: If your family’s survival depended on it, what impossible choice do you think you’d be willing to make?
Find more about A Guardian and a Thief on Knopf’s website.
I read a digital copy made available by Knopf through NetGalley, and this review reflects my honest opinion.