Trawling through one of Bangalore’s wonderful second-hand bookstores, I came across a novel called When I Lived in Modern Times. I had not heard of the author, Linda Grant, but the title intrigued me, as was the fact that the novel was set in Palestine shortly before the State of Israel was created when the territory was controlled by the British. That was enough for me to buy the book and bring it home. With the conflict in Palestine dominating the headlines, I thought a fictional portrayal of its distant origins might be illuminating. I was not disappointed. The novel...