I was given this book by my youngest mausi. In our family we read the books we recommend each other without question. Our taste is impeccable ;)

Anyway, the strange cover on this book didn’t do much to inspire confidence and neither did the back blurb. Only halfway through the book — which is, of course, very good — did I think to look up the author. And there is much about him online. He won a Sahitya Academy Award for his last novel and won accolades from reviewers all over the world — pre-Rushdie. It even has prescient shades of Upamanyu Chatterjee’s “English August” in a few ways. I’m halfway in and I’m definitely going to keep going.