Then begins an investigation, which is fiction, literally and metaphorically. Two alleged Maoists are shot down early in the novel. It is set in Sri Lanka at the time of the civil war, in a single day and night in the life of a refugee and an unlikely relationship. Mahabharata, political commentary – Taneja’s debut novel has it all.Ī stunning debut, which won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, is about the pity of war and the poetry in the pity. Bollywood drama, machinations worthy of the Time gets out of joint when he decides to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. King Lear, the old king is replaced by Devraj Bapuji, the founder of a powerful Indian conglomerate. While referencing the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis, it is also a universal story of finding and losing love, and getting a bit of it back. Thus they join the ranks of refugees roaming the world. The Booker shortlisted novel begins as a regular boy-meet-girl love story and then explodes into chaos as militants attack the city the two inhabit. The city at the centre of this debut novel, also in The Hindu Prize shortlist, is at once imagined and real: if the novel is dystopic, it also builds on our lived reality. It won the 2017 Restless Books New Immigrant Writing award and is shortlisted for The Hindu Prize.Įvery kind of division - class, caste, religion - has been implemented in this futuristic city, and the overwhelming fear is that of contamination.
The structure of the book is dazzling, incorporating short stories, poems, and even a list of occupations. The novel is set in the U.A.E., a “nation built by people who are eventually required to leave,” as the writer bitingly remarks. Narayan in the lovingly described details of small-town life, Salim’s tight, lyrical prose makes the story of the young boy all the more poignant. The book’s unnamed protagonist, “Me”, wants to reintroduce slavery and segregation in this savagely brilliant satire.Ī 13-year-old boy records life in the small seaside town to which he has been transplanted by his dying father in this novel nominated for The Hindu Prize. The Sellout was catapulted to instant stardom when his novel won the 2016 Man Booker Prize. Despite this, our final selection yielded an incredibly brilliant and catholic list that dances between tragedy and mystery, satire, comedy and lyric realism with as much dexterity as the writers themselves. It was difficult to pick our final Top 10, and as with any list, this too carries our own subjective biases. This was a fantastic year for fiction, with first-time authors and established names producing some dazzling works.
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