The Night Diary, Veera Hiranandani’s 2018 work of historical fiction for middle-grade and young adult readers, consists of 60 diary entries spanning approximately four months. In it, the author chronicles the events of India’s post-World War II independence from Britain and subsequent partition through the voice of a 12-year-old Indian girl, Nisha. The fictional family in the novel is loosely based on the childhood experiences of Hiranandani’s father, whose family, like Nisha’s, made the journey to new India when part of India became Pakistan. In The Night Diary, Hiranandani explains the historical significance of independence and partition and shows its violent, divisive impact on Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs. The novel explores themes of hope, courage, family, and identity, is a 2019 Newbery Honor book, and received the Walter Dean Myers and Malka Penn Awards for its contributions to diversity, equity, and human rights. It is an ALA Notable Book and a New York Times Editor’s Choice Pick.

Plot Summary

The novel opens on July 14, 1947. It’s Nisha and Amil’s 12th birthday, and the day that their mother died in childbirth. The twins’ father, Papa, is Hindu, and their Mama, was Muslim, a unique position to be in on the cusp of India’s independence from Britain. Nisha and her brother overhear adult conversations about independence and partition. Indian independence will result in the division of their country into two countries: one for Muslims (Pakistan,) and one for Hindus, Sikhs, and everyone else (new India). As August 15, the day of independence, approaches, the divide between Hindus and Muslims deepens and acts of violence between the groups begin to occur, even at school. Papa pulls the twins out of school and their grandmother, Dadi, gives them their lessons. While Nisha is academically minded, she rarely speaks and only to the beloved Muslim cook, Kazi, and Amil. Amil is artistic and extroverted, but has a reading disability, incurring the wrath of Papa.

Intruders enter the family’s home, vandalizing it and beating Kazi. With the riots moving closer, Papa determines it is time to leave, but first he throws a party to say goodbye to their friends and family. At the party, the family home is festive. Everyone is happy, and no one talks of independence or partition. Once the family says goodbye to friends, colleagues, and neighbors, they must bid farewell to Kazi. Nisha, Amil, Papa, and Dadi pack only what they can carry. Right before they leave, Papa learns of violence occurring on the trains, which had been their planned mode of transportation to Jodhpur.

The family heads out on foot for their uncle’s house. On the journey, they see people migrating in mass numbers in both directions. The desert is hot, and they run low on supplies, eventually running out of water. Before they perish, it rains, and the family is able to get to their destination, marking the first half of their journey to Jodhpur. When they arrive, a Muslim man whose family was killed by Hindus, grabs Nisha and threatens her with a knife. Papa talks the man into dropping his weapon.

While staying with Rashid Uncle, the children get to know their mother’s brother, and they feel close to Mama. Nisha befriends a Muslim girl through her window. She is delighted to have a friend, but she reveals that she, a Hindu, is hiding in Rashid’s house and puts the family in danger. They immediately depart for Jodhpur via train.

The family walks to the town where the train departs, and they struggle through throngs of people to get their place on the overcrowded train. Along the way, Muslim men block the tracks and board the train filled with Hindu and Sikh families fleeing what is now Pakistan. Fearing for her life and the lives of her family members, Nisha witnesses fights between the Muslim and Hindu men, some of them fatal. The trauma causes her to lose consciousness. Eventually, she awakens in Jodhpur, where Papa’s brothers have settled and secured an apartment for the family.

The Jodhpur apartment is cramped and dirty and bears no resemblance to the home she left behind. Nisha and Amil go to school, but Nisha has again ceased speaking due to her father’s chastisement after she played with the Muslim girl. After a short time in Jodhpur, she and Amil encounter a man in the alley near their home. He is dirty and very thin. Nisha and Amil do not recognize him at first, but then he speaks their names, and Nisha sees in the man’s eyes that he is Kazi. He has fled the country meant for him, a Muslim, to come live with “his family” in Jodhpur. He has brought a scrap of one of Nisha’s mother’s paintings, which Papa hangs on their wall.