Subhash and Udayan Mitra are born fifteen months apart in Tollygunge, a south Calcutta neighbourhood bordered by two ponds and a stretch of flood-prone land. Inseparable as boys, they diverge in the late 1960s: Udayan, charismatic and impatient, is drawn into the Maoist-inspired Naxalite uprising, while the cautious Subhash goes to Rhode Island to study oceanography.
Udayan marries Gauri, a philosophy student with her own fierce intelligence, without his parents' blessing. When political violence reaches the family, Subhash makes a choice meant as rescue that binds him, Gauri and a child to one another in ways none of them can fully accept. The novel then follows its characters across fifty years and two continents.
Lahiri's prose is calm and closely observed, and she lets long time spans reveal how a single event goes on shaping lives. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and a finalist for the US National Book Award, and it won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.
Book details
| Author | Jhumpa Lahiri |
|---|---|
| First published | 2013 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Literary fiction |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 340 |
| Setting | Tollygunge, Calcutta and coastal Rhode Island, 1950s to 2010s |
| Awards | DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2015 |
Themes
- Brotherhood
- Political radicalism
- Motherhood
- Guilt
- Exile
Who should read it
Readers who like slow-burning family novels that trace one choice across generations.