Indian

'Set in post-independence India, the novel follows for eighteen months or so four linked families in Calcutta, the province of Purva Pradesh and its capital Brahmpur, and the cities–Delhi, Kanpur, Lucknow—trawled by the heroine's mother in her search for a “suitable boy”… But the g... More

Shanti Behari Seth was born on the eighth day of the eighth month in the eighth year of the twentieth century; he died two years before its close. He was brought up in India in the late years of the Raj, and was sent by his family in the 1930s to Berlin—though he could not speak a word of German�... More

‘Indu Sundaresan expertly blends together history, memorable characters, and the sights, colors and smells of India to create a hugely compelling novel. It is, quite literally, a feast for the senses’ —David Davidar, author of The House of Blue MangoesMay 1942. Set over four s... More

In winter 2004, a writer met a young girl on an overnight train journey. To pass the time, she offered to tell a story. However, she had a condition: that he make it into his second book. He hesitated, but asked what the story was about.The girl said the story was about six people working in a call ... More

The novel starts with the meeting of Chetan Bhagat and a young lady in a train and she tells him the story of a night at the call center in Delhi on the condition that it would be his next book. The story is viewed through Shyam, a call center agent and a tame team leader and it revolves on him, his... More

How a penniless waiter from Mumbai became the biggest quiz-show winner in history - warm-hearted comic storytelling by a debut author Eighteen-year-old Ram Mohammad Thomas is in prison after answering twelve questions correctly on a TV quiz show to win one billion rupees. The producers have arrested... More

From the author of "Serving Crazy with Curry" comes an ambitious, moving tale of one woman's search for a meaningful life in post-independence India.A sweeping epic set in southern India, where a group of outcasts create a family while holding tight to their dreams. Barely a month after she is promi... More

The new novel from the author of the widely acclaimed bestseller The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide is a rich, exotic saga set in Calcutta and in the vast archipelago of islands in the Bay of Bengal. An Indian myth says that when the river Ganges first descended from the heavens, the force of the... More

‘This is how the language should be used . . . This is how a novel should be written.’—Khushwant Singh As a boy, Amitav Ghosh’s narrator travels across time, experiencing different worlds, all brought to life by the tales of those around him. Set against a backdrop of war and strife, each st... More

Rumi Vasi is ten years, two months, thirteen days, two hours, forty-two minutes and six seconds old. The probability of her walking home from school with John Kemble is 0.2142, a probability severely reduced by the lacy frock and thick woollen tights she is forced to wear by her father. Numbers ... More

The modern classic of the re-creation of one day in the life of the sweeper and latrine cleaner Bakha, an untouchable. Anand pours a vitality and richness of detail and conveys with precision, urgency and barely disguised fury what it might have been like to be one of India’s untouchables. · A ... More

A searing new novel of art and adultery from the best-selling author of Ladies CoupeWhen travel writer Christopher Stewart arrives at a riverside resort in Kerala to meet Koman, Radha’s uncle and a famous kathakali dancer, he enters a world of masks and repressed emotions. From their first meeting... More

‘Anovelist of dazzling ingenuity.’ —San Francisco ChronicleFollowing the form of the raga in Indian classical music, Amitav Ghosh slowly builds the tempo of The Circle of Reason. The first part spans several decades, the second unfolds over a few weeks, and the third, like a scherzo, races thr... More

A young couple from a small town in India, penniless but gloriously in love, move to the big city, where the man works feverishly on a novel, stopping only to feed his ceaseless desire for his beautiful wife. In time the lovers abandon the city for an old house in the mist-shrouded Himalayas. While ... More

Faredoon (Freddie) Junglewalla is either the jewel of the Parsi community or a murdering scoundrel. Freddie’s mother-in-law, Jerbanoo, thinks he is planning to do away with her, but Freddie has always been a pragmatist: if the old woman were to die (be murdered?) the body would have to be place... More

Hiran is born in 1857: the year of Mutiny and the year his father dies. Brought to Calcutta by his widowed mother he turns out to have few talents, apart from an uncanny ability to read a man's lies in his palm. When luck gets him a job at the auction house, Hiran finds himself embroiled in a myster... More

Translated from the Tamil, "Seasons of the Palm "tells the story of an "untouchable" lad in bondage to a paternal yet powerful landlord. He struggles to keep a fragile happiness, but endless work and a stubborn hunger are never too far away. Relentless in its portrayal of the everyday humiliations o... More

The partition of India has cast its lengthy shadow over two generations of Indians The partition of India has cast its lengthy shadow over two generations of Indians. Drawing on short stories, poems, and satirical writings and eye-witness accounts, these two volumes document the anguish and ... More

The essays in this volume seek to explore the genre of the short story in India and its relationship with English language and literature. Various aspects of the question are taken up—the impact of colonialism; the way English has shaped (or not) short story writing; why, how and in what contexts ... More

Young Vikram Karanth joins a motley crew-of sharp city slicks, poetic clerks and army roughnecks-to climb a Himalayan peak. An enigmatic lama queries their motives, and Vikram speculates about mountains and masculinity. The book deconstructs the ethos of a distinctively masculine sport in a gentle u... More