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Tag: Rohinton Mistry

  • Such a Long Journey

    Gustad Noble is a decent, proud bank clerk living with his wife Dilnavaz and three children in the Khodadad Building, a Parsi apartment block in Bombay. In 1971 a letter arrives from Major Jimmy Bilimoria, a friend who vanished years earlier, asking Gustad to deposit a large sum of money on behalf of a secret government operation linked to the coming war over East Pakistan.

    As Gustad tries to do his duty, his household is fraying: his eldest son Sohrab refuses the IIT place his father dreamed of, his daughter falls ill, and Dilnavaz turns to a neighbour's spells for help. Around them the building's eccentrics, including a pavement artist who paints gods on a wall, give the novel warmth and comedy.

    Mistry's first novel draws on the real Nagarwala bank fraud case and is affectionate about Parsi Bombay while sceptical of power. It won the Governor General's Award and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book and was shortlisted for the Booker; a film version appeared in 1998.

    Book details

    AuthorRohinton Mistry
    First published1991
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreLiterary fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)339
    SettingKhodadad Building, Bombay, 1971
    AwardsGovernor General's Award 1991, Commonwealth Writers' Prize 1992

    Themes

    • Fathers and sons
    • Friendship and betrayal
    • Political corruption
    • Parsi community
    • Faith

    Who should read it

    Readers who enjoy warm, character-rich domestic novels with a political mystery underneath.

  • Family Matters

    Nariman Vakeel, a retired English professor of seventy-nine, lives in a large flat in Chateau Felicity with his two middle-aged stepchildren, Coomy and Jal. After he breaks his ankle on an evening walk, Coomy contrives to move him to the two-room flat of his daughter Roxana, her husband Yezad and their two sons in Pleasant Villa.

    The burden of nursing an invalid, and the cost of his medicines, pushes Yezad, an assistant in a sports shop, towards a reckless plan involving his employer and the Shiv Sena's hold on the city. Flashbacks show the forbidden love affair that Nariman was made to give up in his youth, a wound that still shapes every relationship in the family.

    Mistry writes about old age, duty and the slow business of caring with patience and gentle comedy, especially through Roxana's young son Jehangir. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2002, it is also a portrait of 1990s Bombay and of a Parsi community worried about its own survival.

    Book details

    AuthorRohinton Mistry
    First published2002
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreLiterary fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)487
    SettingBombay, mid-1990s, with flashbacks to the 1940s and 1950s

    Themes

    • Caring for the elderly
    • Family obligation
    • Religious orthodoxy
    • Communal politics
    • Regret

    Who should read it

    Anyone who has looked after an ageing parent, or who loves quiet, tender family novels.

  • A Fine Balance

    In 1975, in an unnamed seaside city that is clearly Bombay, Dina Dalal, a Parsi widow determined not to depend on her brother, takes in work from an export firm. She hires two tailors, Ishvar Darji and his nephew Om, who have fled caste violence in their village, and rents a room to Maneck Kohlah, a student from a hill town whose family store is losing out to development.

    Mistry gives each character a long backstory, from the Chamaar family that defied caste by becoming tailors to Maneck's mountain childhood, before bringing them together in Dina's flat. As Indira Gandhi's Emergency unfolds, slum demolitions, forced sterilisation drives, bonded labour and petty officials press in from outside, and their fragile household is tested again and again.

    This is a big, compassionate novel about friendship and dignity under crushing systems, written in clear, unshowy prose. It won the Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker. Its emotional force is famous, and readers should be prepared for hardship.

    Book details

    AuthorRohinton Mistry
    First published1995
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreLiterary fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)603
    SettingAn unnamed city by the sea (Bombay) and rural north India, 1940s to 1984, mainly 1975 to 1977
    AwardsGiller Prize 1995, Commonwealth Writers' Prize 1996

    Themes

    • The emergency
    • Caste oppression
    • Friendship
    • Poverty
    • Resilience

    Who should read it

    Readers who want an absorbing, humane epic about ordinary people living through India's Emergency.