At a moment when conversations around restitution, contested histories, fractured identities and shared heritage are reshaping public discourse across the world, When We Are Strangers arrives as one of the year’s most original literary works. Part graphic novel, part historical excavation and part philosophical meditation, it asks a startling question: What if colonial theft could be answered not with violence, but with an act of love? Reimagining the forgotten world of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement and the extraordinary friendship between Gandhi and Bacha Khan, the book follows an audacious fictional mission to reclaim a stolen Gandhara Buddha from the Indian Museum in Calcutta. Blending meticulous archival research with breathtaking visual storytelling, When We Are Strangers challenges conventional narratives of freedom, heritage and nationhood, arguing instead that true liberation lies in repairing what history broke—not only monuments, but relationships, memory and imagination.
Yet beneath its sweeping historical canvas lies an intensely human story. This is the story of Mahmud, a young Pathan photographer, and Sita, a history student from Calcutta, whose unlikely friendship cuts across religion, language, geography and fear. Their journey unfolds against real historical events—from the Qissa Khwani Bazaar massacre to Gandhi’s peace marches through Noakhali and Bacha Khan’s work among communities devastated by communal violence. The people they encounter, the landscapes they traverse and the ideals they struggle to uphold are rooted in documented history, transforming forgotten lives into unforgettable characters. Rather than celebrating heroes from a distance, When We Are Strangers reminds us that history is ultimately made by ordinary people choosing courage over hatred, solidarity over suspicion and hope over despair. In an age increasingly defined by polarization, it offers a profoundly moving vision of coexistence—not as nostalgia, but as a radical possibility.
Already hailed by historian and author Sam Dalrymple as “a triumph of historical fiction” that “vibrantly brings this overlooked chapter of history to life“, When We Are Strangers marks a remarkable collaboration between three internationally acclaimed creators. Sarnath Banerjee, widely regarded as the pioneer of the Indian graphic novel and creator of Corridor, The Harappa Files and Absolute Jafar, brings his signature visual language that blends humour, history and speculative imagination. He is joined by Professor Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, one of South Asia’s foremost historians at Brown University and the celebrated author of The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia, whose years of archival research form the intellectual backbone of the work. Together, they have created not merely a graphic novel, but an ambitious work of literary history that invites readers to rethink freedom, belonging and the stories we inherit—and those we choose to carry forward
Publication date is 31st August
