A History of Burning was well received by critics, including starred reviews from Booklist,[2] Kirkus Reviews,[3] and Shelf Awareness.[4]
Kirkus referred to the novel as "an ambitious family drama" that "skillfully explores the bonds of kinship and the yearning for peace and security".[3]
Booklist's Shoba Viswanathan highlighted the book's strengths, writing, "This striking epic combines powerful characters of different generations, compelling storytelling, dramatic settings and conflicts, and thoughtful explorations of displacement and belonging, family ties, citizenship, loyalty, loss, and resilience."[2]
Shelf Awareness's Julia Kastner similarly praised the writing: "Oza's gorgeous prose is lush with detail--colors, flavors, emotions--and saturated with loveliness and pain [...] A History of Burning admirably charts how [...] history, both personal and collective, is formed from the stories we tell and the silences we allow to remain."[4]
Publishers Weekly called the novel "impressive", though noted that "the format doesn’t allow for much character development". Despite this, they wrote, "Oza neatly sets her characters’ lives within the context of broader political and economic movements, showing how historical circumstances determine their individual destinies as much as the choices of their forebears. Though it can be tiring, this broad and colorful portrait has plenty of impressive moments."[5]
S. Kirk Walsh, writing for The New York Times Book Review, called A History of Burning "remarkable" and "epic", noting that "tender humanity emanates during these moments of colossal cruelty". However, Walsh indicated that "the plot turns at the novel’s end seem convenient; the story folds too neatly into the overarching metaphor of the book".[6]
