Books Like The Henna Artist

There is a specific feeling that comes from finishing The Henna Artist: the feeling of having watched a woman build her own life. Alka Joshi’s novel - Lakshmi, the henna artist of 1950s Jaipur, who escaped an abusive marriage and built a new identity, only to have her past arrive at her door - has been loved by readers around the world because it is a story of women’s resilience, secrets and the lives women build for themselves. The problem after finishing it is the one every great book creates: you want more of the feeling - the world of Jaipur, the resilience, the women. This guide collects the books that genuinely belong on that shelf.

What Made The Henna Artist Special#

Before the recommendations, it is worth naming what you are actually looking for, because the right next book depends on which part of the book stayed with you.

If the India stayed with you - Jaipur, the markets, the world of 1950s India - then the novels of India will fit. If the women’s resilience stayed with you - Lakshmi building her life, the women’s community - then the women’s-resilience novels will be your natural next step. And if the secrets stayed with you - the past arriving at the door, the revealed truth - then the novels of secrets and family will carry it forward. Most readers are looking for all three, and the books below cover the range.

The Novels of India#

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri#

If there is one book that the Henna Artist reader should pick up next, it is The Namesake. Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel - the Ganguli family, from Calcutta to Massachusetts - is one of the great literary novels of Indian family life, and its attention to the texture of Indian domestic life will feel familiar to readers who loved the world of The Henna Artist.

The two books are siblings: the Indian family, the two worlds, the deep sympathy for every generation. Where The Henna Artist is set in India, The Namesake follows the family to America - and both are told with the same care for the texture of daily life.

Content notes: A literary novel, suitable for readers from the mid-teens up.

The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar#

For readers who want the women’s story set in contemporary India, The Space Between Us is the book. The novel follows two women in Mumbai - Serabai, the wealthy widow, and Bhima, her servant - and the secret that binds their lives together.

The book shares The Henna Artist’s concern with class, women and the lives hidden beneath the surface of Indian society. For readers who loved the world of The Henna Artist, this is the deeper, more contemporary version.

Content notes: Deals with class and family difficulty; for readers from the mid-teens up.

The Novels of Women’s Resilience#

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd#

For readers who want the women’s-resilience theme in its warmest form, The Secret Life of Bees is the essential book. Lily, a white girl in 1960s South Carolina, runs away with her Black caretaker Rosaleen - and the novel is the story of the Boatwright sisters who take them in, and the life Lily builds with them.

The book shares The Henna Artist’s shape: the young woman who escapes a difficult life and builds a new one with the help of strong women. For readers who loved Lakshmi’s resilience, Lily is the American version of the same story.

Content notes: Deals with racism; for readers from the mid-teens up.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett#

For readers who want the women’s-voices-and-resilience theme with more voices, The Help is the book. Set in 1960s Mississippi, the novel follows the Black maids who tell their stories and the young white woman who collects them - and it is a celebration of the courage of women whose lives were hidden.

The book shares The Henna Artist’s subject: women building their lives and telling their truths against the constraints of their world. For readers who loved the women of The Henna Artist, the women of The Help are the natural next community.

Content notes: Deals with racism; for readers from the mid-teens up.

The Novels of Secrets and Family#

The Henna Artist Trilogy Continues#

For readers who cannot bear to leave Lakshmi and her world, the trilogy continues: The Secret Keeper of Jaipur follows the story into a new generation, and The Perfumist of Paris carries it to France. Together the trilogy completes the story of the characters readers fell in love with.

Content notes: Historical fiction dealing with family secrets; for readers from the mid-teens up.

The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan#

For readers who want the secrets-and-family theme with a different setting, The Kitchen God’s Wife is the book. Winnie, an elderly Chinese woman, finally tells her American daughter the story of her life in wartime China - the marriage, the losses, the secrets carried for decades.

The book shares The Henna Artist’s shape: the woman whose past holds secrets, the telling that finally frees her. For readers who loved the secrets of The Henna Artist, this is the natural continuation.

Content notes: Deals with wartime trauma; for readers from the mid-teens up.

How to Choose Your Next Read#

The right next book depends on what you are ready for. If you want the India: The Namesake or The Space Between Us. If you want the women’s resilience: The Secret Life of Bees or The Help. If you want more of the story: the rest of the trilogy. If you want the secrets: The Kitchen God’s Wife.

There is no wrong order, but there is a sensible one: start with The Secret Life of Bees for the same resilience, then The Namesake for the same India, then the rest of the trilogy, and let the others fill in as you go.

Reading the Shelf for the Women#

There is one more thing worth naming about the Henna Artist shelf, because it is the thing the book itself would most want named: these are books about women building their own lives. The Henna Artist is a novel of women’s resilience - Lakshmi escaping an abusive marriage, building a new identity, carrying her secrets - and the books on this list are the continuation of that subject. They are books that take women’s lives seriously, that give the reader the experience of the constraint and the courage.

The reading is a form of witness. A reader who finishes The Henna Artist has been given a way of seeing the women’s lives around them differently - the work, the secrets, the strength beneath the surface - and the books on this list extend the gift. Each one is a demonstration that women build their own lives against the grain of their worlds, and that the building deserves witness. For readers who loved the women of The Henna Artist, the shelf is a collection of women’s lives to enter, and the entering is the point. Read them with respect, and carry the women with you.

It is also worth saying who the shelf is for, because it is wider than it first appears. The obvious reader is the lover of historical fiction - but the deeper reader is the one who has ever had to build a life from nothing: the fresh start, the new identity, the past that must be carried carefully. The Henna Artist and its companions are books to give to that reader - because they argue, better than any advice, that the building is possible, and that the women who build are not alone in the building. The gift of the shelf is the gift of the argument, and the argument is for everyone who has ever started over and needed proof that it can be done - and for every reader who has ever loved a woman who carried her life quietly, and wanted to know what she carried. The books on this shelf give that knowledge: the constraint, the courage, the building. They do not romanticize the building or soften the cost; they show the cost and the courage together, the way the Henna Artist does, and that honesty is part of their gift. The reader who finishes them has not been given a fantasy of easy renewal but a true picture of hard-won life, and the true picture is the more useful gift.

The Values the Shelf Carries#

The Henna Artist is, at its core, a book about values in action - the resilience of women, the loyalty of the women’s community, the healthy relationships that grow when women support each other. It belongs on the relationships shelf alongside the guides that explore those values directly. Our sibling relationships themes and reading notes walk through the value of the bond between women who are not blood - the loyalty that makes a family of friends - and they pair naturally with this reading, because the novel is a demonstration of exactly what the guide describes.

The shelf also connects to the friendship themes, in a specific way: the book’s deepest subject is the community of women who carry each other - Lakshmi’s friends, the women who know her secrets. Our guide to family-friendly friendship and loyalty explores the bonds that the novel shows being built across its pages, and it belongs with this reading because the women’s community is a study in loyalty. Together these guides frame the fiction, and the fiction makes the guides feelable.

Conclusion#

The Henna Artist has been loved around the world because it is a story of women’s resilience, secrets and the lives women build for themselves - Lakshmi, the henna artist of Jaipur, who escapes an abusive marriage and builds a new identity. The books on this list are the honest responses to the question it leaves behind: what next?

The India of The Namesake, the women’s resilience of The Secret Life of Bees, the voices of The Help, the secrets of The Kitchen God’s Wife, and more of Lakshmi’s own story - together they carry the same truth in different voices: women build their own lives, the building is hard, and the building is the point. Read the notes, choose where you are, and let the books take their time.