The Blue Bedspread

{{Short description|1999 novel by Raj Kamal Jha}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2023}}

{{Use Indian English|date=March 2023}}

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| name = The Blue Bedspread

| image = The_Blue_Bedspread_cover_Picador_1999.jpg

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| caption = 1999 Picador ed.

| author = Raj Kamal Jha

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| pub_date = 1999

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| isbn = 9780330373852

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The Blue Bedspread is the 1999 first novel by Indian writer Raj Kamal Jha.{{cite news |last1=Bose |first1=Sudip |title="The Blue Bedspread" by Raj Kamal Jha |url=https://www.salon.com/2000/04/11/jha/ |access-date=24 April 2022 |work=Salon |date=11 April 2000 |language=en}}{{cite web |title=The Blue Bedspread by Raj Kamal Jha |url=https://smithsonianapa.org/bookdragon/the-blue-bedspread-by-raj-kamal-jha/ |website=BookDragon |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Asian Pacific American Center |access-date=24 April 2022 |date=26 July 2000}}

In the novel an old man sits up all night in Calcutta writing for his dead older sister's newborn child, who is sleeping in the next room and will be taken the next day by adoptive parents. He says "I will tell you happy stories and I will tell you sad stories. And remember, my child, your truth lies somewhere in between". The book has been described as "the most tender, sensuous and beguiling book about incest and child abuse you'll ever read".{{cite news |last1=Hickling |first1=Alfred |title=Review: If You Are Afraid of Heights by Raj Kamal Jha |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/aug/16/fiction.featuresreviews2 |work=The Guardian |date=15 August 2003 |language=en}}

A 2007 paper by Alex Barley in Narrative Inquiry used this novel and Anita Desai's Fire on the Mountain to consider "the idea of home as a space of sanctuary and retreat from the problems of domestic life".{{cite journal |last1=Barley |first1=Alexandra |title=Home as sanctuary: Stories of secrets and sadness in Fire on the Mountain and The Blue Bedspread |journal=Narrative Inquiry |date=6 November 2007 |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=119–139 |doi=10.1075/ni.17.1.09bar}}