Two Lives

By Vikram Seth

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs

Two Lives (2005) is Vikram Seth's memoir of his great-uncle Shanti, an Indian dentist who lost an arm fighting in World War II, and his German-Jewish wife, Henny, who fled Berlin before the war. Seth lived with them in London as a student. Drawing on interviews and on Henny's letters, he describes how the couple built a life in England and what happened to Henny's family in the Holocaust.

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• Fareed Zakaria: “And Vikram Seth, whose most astonishing work is a novel in verse, “The Golden Gate,” written in iambic tetrameter and modeled on Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin.” As you read it, you are charmed by the story while still aware and in awe of Seth’s talent.”