{"product_id":"the-earthly-playing-field","title":"The Earthly Playing Field: A Novel","description":"\u003cp style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\" data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLove and revolution in a crumbling world order.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: start; ; white-space: pre-wrap;\" data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRoma has a steady job, a mortgage, and a surrogate family in Queens. But as she moves through her daily routines, the powerful Empire that rules her world bares its teeth elsewhere—crushing freedom movements across the planet, including the Punjabi farmers’ uprising where her younger brother struggles on the frontlines.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: start; ; white-space: pre-wrap;\" data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRoma’s life is upended when her older brother entrusts her with a strange gift: an ordinary-looking plant that manifests a sophisticated bioengineered technology. The ‘cell’ opens a portal for an extraterrestrial spirit-body bearing news of a liberated future–and the potential to hack AI warfare—propelling Roma and her family into the core of a rising resistance.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: start; ; white-space: pre-wrap;\" data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs dreams and dialectics converge, Roma meditates on the role of faith, ruminating on mystic poetics and anticolonial legacies while yearning for a bewitching woman whose heart will only ever belong to the revolution. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: start; ; white-space: pre-wrap;\" data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhat People Are Saying\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e“A complex coming-of-political-consciousness narrative . . . heady and fascinating.” —\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.publishersweekly.com\/9781945335662\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e“Defiant, compassionate and compulsively readable, \u003cem\u003eEarthly Playing Field\u003c\/em\u003e finds an exquisite balance between speculative fiction and urgent political insight. That Singh deftly brings this all together into a thrilling narrative is a resounding testament to this writer's striking talents.” —\u003cstrong\u003eMaaza Mengiste\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of The \u003cem\u003eShadow King\u003c\/em\u003e, shortlisted for the Booker Prize\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e“The novel of ideas is back and in spectacular shape. Radhika Singh crafts a rip-roaring adventure inside of a geopolitical graduate school seminar inside of a revolutionary handbook, wrapped in a tale of queer longing—a literary-Marxist turducken for the ages. This book makes you believe not only that the revolution is coming, but that it's winnable. \u003cem\u003eEarthly Playing Field\u003c\/em\u003e is a showcase of a radical and talented writer with a long and exciting career ahead of her.” —\u003cstrong\u003eAlejandro Varela\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eMiddle Spoon\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e“\u003cem\u003eEarthly Playing Field\u003c\/em\u003e is not just a novel. It is a library of revolutionary possibility that meets us where we are and where we could be.” —\u003cstrong\u003eAlexis Pauline Gumb\u003c\/strong\u003es, author of \u003cem\u003eSurvival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e“Polemical and passionate . . . a worthy addition to the long tradition of socially-minded speculative fiction.” —\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/chireviewofbooks.com\/2026\/05\/05\/earthly-playing-field\/\" target=\"_blank\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eChicago Review of Books\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e“One of the hallmarks of modernism was to separate the spiritual from the political. Given that the birth of modernism is deeply intertwined with colonialism, this separation also benefited the colonizers and the imperialists. In an act of resistance, Radhika Singh’s \u003cem\u003eEarthly Playing Field\u003c\/em\u003e beautifully bridges this artificial divide between the spiritual and the political and highlights that one cannot exist without the other.” —\u003cstrong\u003eHaroon Khalid\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eWalking with Nanak\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e“In beautiful, vivid prose, Singh creates a social, historical, and political tapestry that deftly undoes the tired common wisdom of our world. I haven't enjoyed a novel this much in a very long time.” —\u003cstrong\u003eSteven Salaita\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eJerry and Rodrigo Go to War\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e“This book set my heart on fire! Defiantly and deliciously romantic, \u003cem\u003eEarthly Playing Field \u003c\/em\u003eshakes the western literary construct of romance to give us something beyond the happily-ever-after: an ecstatic vision of Sufi love that amplifies our sense of possibility—of the world now and the world to come—with an ardent and transcendent yearning.” —\u003cstrong\u003eJoanna Lowell\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eA Shore Thing\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e\"In the throes of a crumbling US empire, against the rubble and resistance of Gaza, when the horizon of imagination itself has become yet another surveilled border, \u003cem\u003eEarthly Playing Field\u003c\/em\u003e dares to envision and enact a post-revolutionary world.\" —\u003cstrong\u003eAmmiel Alcalay\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eControlled Demolition\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e\"Lush, expansive and revolutionary in its vision, Singh imagines a moving global journey of resistance that harnesses the power of nature through mythic technology, against the fatal forces of imperialism. Written in luminous, philosophical prose, rife with wit, sharp political analysis and cyberpunk irreverence, the very nature of reality and spirit is unraveled. This left me with that old yearning, for a time untouched by colonialism or Partition; a yearning for us, as a collective, to experience radical love and syncretic, spiritual awakenings, despite the horrors that have shaped our lineages, our world. This is divine, daring work.\" —\u003cstrong\u003eTanaïs\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eStellar Smoke\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch5 data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h5\u003e\n\u003cp data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRadhika Singh\u003c\/strong\u003e is a writer and editor living in Queens, New York. Her fiction speculates on the presence of magic in this world, the connection to spirit and consciousness, and the power of the people to organize for collective liberation. Her novel \u003cem\u003eWeirdly Tuned Antennae\u003c\/em\u003e, winner of the 2025 Sukenick Prize for Innovative Fiction, is forthcoming from FC2 Press. For more information visit: \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/rhsingh.work\"\u003erhsingh.work\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Common Notions","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44505497108573,"sku":"9781945335662","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0562\/0826\/1213\/files\/earthlyplayingfield.jpg?v=1781449474","url":"https:\/\/leftwingbooks.net\/en-us\/products\/the-earthly-playing-field","provider":"Leftwingbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}