Simrita Dhir grew up in Patiala, Punjab in a family of distinguished academics. A national-level debater, writer and actor in school and college, she is a Duke of Edinburgh Gold Standard Awardee. A recipient of the Chancellor's Medal for Academic Excellence in Post Graduate Studies, she received her PhD on Toni Morrison from the Department of English and Cultural Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh. An avid reader, some of her favourites are Prem Chand, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, RK Narayan, Ismat Chughtai and Nirmal Verma alongside other literary stalwarts of Indian and World Literature. Simrita has contributed to leading national newspapers including The Times of India, The Indian Express and The Tribune. She now lives with her husband and their son in San Diego, California where she studied Advanced Rhetoric at the Department of Rhetoric and Writing Studies, San Diego State University. She lectures on Writing, Diversity and Imagination at the University of California, Art Institute of California, among others. The Rainbow Acres is her debut novel.
In the spring of 1916, seventeen-year-old Kishan Singh is euphoric in his village Noor Mahal in Punjab, British India as he dreams of going to college, landing a government job and marrying his heartthrob Roop. Summer flies in with promise but ends in disaster when heavy rains flood the fields, wrecking the cotton crop and triggering influenza which leaves behind a trail of dead villagers. Kishan Singhs dreams are ruthlessly washed away. Devastated, he sets off on a life-threatening voyage across two oceans for a distant and unknown land. On a cataclysmic day in 1919, Sophias idyllic world in Guadalajara, Mexico, falls apart when she becomes a hapless victim to the ravages of the Mexican Revolution. She battles hunger, poverty and near prostitution before embarking on a perilous night journey across the border. Will their paths cross in the land of opportunities that is overrun with racial and class barriers? The Rainbow Acres is a moving saga of migration, selfless love, fortitude, friendship, and the quest for land and identity, set against the backdrop of old Punjab, early California and revolution-torn Mexico.
