Enter the world of Umaiba, a girl at the threshold of youth, a magic time of life. She is a keen student at school but also curious about marriage, love and her body. Her confidant is Dechoma, a servant in her grandmother's house, who affectionately disapproves of her rebellious tendencies. But Dechoma is also a great fount of love that keeps Umaiba from falling into despair or loneliness as she exits her childhood.Fathi Salim deftly balances the buoyant and the poignant in her rad...

'A wonderful, rich and humane novel... a classic' GuardianBorn at the stroke of midnight at the exact moment of India's independence, Saleem Sinai is a special child.However, this coincidence of birth has consequences he is not prepared for: telepathic powers connect him with 1,000 other 'midnight's children' all of whom are endowed with unusual gifts. Inextricably linked to his nation, Saleem's story is a whirlwind of disasters an...

FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR OF THE GOD OF SMALL THINGSLONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017NOMINATED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTIONLONGLISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE 2018THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE and THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER'At ...

In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas lives an embittered judge who wants only to retire in peace, when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorstep. The judge's cook watches over her distractedly, for his thoughts are often on his son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one gritty New York restaurant to another. Kiran Desai's brilliant novel, published to huge acclaim, is a story of joy and despair. Her characters face numerous choices t...

In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humour, these portraits of family and community tensions have garnered both censure from conservative quarters as well India's most prestigious literary awards. This is a collection sure to be read for years to come.

***As dramatised on BBC Radio Four***SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZETHE SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA RICHARD AND JUDY PICK'Written with a wisdom and skill that few authors attain in a lifetime' SUNDAY TIMESStill in her teenage years, Nazneen finds herself in an arranged marriage with a disappointed older man. Away from her...

“A Bangladeshi immigrant in London is torn between the kind, tedious older husband with whom she has an arranged marriage (and children) and the fiery political activist she lusts after” (Curtis Sittenfeld, author of Sisterland) in this Booker Prize–shortlisted work of literary fiction about the immigrant experience.After an arranged marriage to Chanu, a man twenty years older, Nazneen is taken to London, leaving her home and heart in the Bangladeshi villa...

Nariman Vakeel is a seventy-nine-year-old Parsi widower beset by Parkinson's disease and haunted by memories of the past. He lives with his two middle-aged step-children. When Nariman's illness is compunded by a broken ankle, he's forced to take up residence with his daughter Roxana, her husband Yezad and their two young sons. This new responsibility for Yezad, who is already besieged by financial worries, proves too much and pushes him into a scheme of deception - with devastating consequ...

The dazzling new book from the winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize: one of the summer's most eagerly anticipated works of fiction.In his compelling new work of fiction, Aravind Adiga has imagined the small Indian city of Kittur, an everytown nestling on the coast south of Goa and north of Calicut. Through the myriad and distinctive voices of its inhabitants, an entire Indian world comes vividly and unforgettably to life.From a middle-aged Communist to an Is...

LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER • A spellbinding debut novel about the trailblazing Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, who defied society’s expectations to find her voice and her destiny“A complex and beautiful rendering of [a] vanished country and its scattered people, a reminder of the power and purpose of art, and an ode to female creativity under a patriarchy that repeatedly tries to snuff it out.”—The New York Times Book Review(Editors’ Cho...

This carefully selected collection of Vaikom Muhammad Basheers short stories are characterised by a variety in theme and tone. He has enshrined in them every kind of experience from the pangs of hunger and sex to the rapture of mystic vision. Its range includes stark realistic pictures of the material world as well as the realm of fantasy haunted by ghosts and spirits. Basheer has written on love and hate, on politicians and pickpockets, on the fancies of childhood and on the disillusionments...

A spirited Indian woman falls in love with a writer she's never met, refusing all other suitors. When he appears, he's nothing like she'd dreamed. Her life with him is hell; his vanity and treachery nearly destroy her. She begins an affair with a handsome teacher, threatening her family's honor. Rashida's story unfolds against a sweeping backdrop of Indian history.