Mrs Rupa Mehra has one aim as the novel opens in 1951: to find a suitable husband for her younger daughter Lata, a university student in the fictional Gangetic city of Brahmpur. Lata, thoughtful and wary of being managed, finds herself weighing three very different men, a charming Muslim classmate, a famous poet and a hard-working shoe-company manager.
Around this courtship Vikram Seth builds a panoramic portrait of four families, the Mehras, Kapoors, Khans and Chatterjis, during India's first general election. Subplots follow the abolition of zamindari estates, a riot at a temple-mosque site, the leather and shoe trade, a courtesan's music, and a minister's wayward son, so politics and private life constantly brush against each other.
At nearly 1,400 pages it is one of the longest single-volume novels in English, yet it reads easily, in clear, gently ironic prose with nineteenth-century patience. It won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the WH Smith Literary Award, and was adapted for BBC television by Mira Nair in 2020.
Book details
| Author | Vikram Seth |
|---|---|
| First published | 1993 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Literary fiction |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 1349 |
| Setting | Brahmpur (fictional), Calcutta and Delhi, 1951 to 1952 |
| Awards | Commonwealth Writers' Prize 1994, WH Smith Literary Award 1994 |
Themes
- Arranged marriage
- Post-independence politics
- Hindu-muslim relations
- Family duty
- Choice and freedom
Who should read it
Readers who love long, immersive family novels in the tradition of Tolstoy and Austen, set in early independent India.