Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award Winner of the Encore Award Shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature Longlisted for the IMPAC Prize Calcutta, 1967. Unnoticed by his family, Supratik has become dangerously involved in extremist political activism. Compelled by an idealistic desire to change his life and the world around him, all he leaves behind before disappearing is a note. At home, his family slowly begins to unravel. Poisonous rivalries grow, the once-thriving family business implodes and destructive secrets are unearthed. And all around them the sands are shifting as society fractures, for this is a moment of turbulence, of inevitable and unstoppable change. ‘Deeply moving’ Amitav Ghosh ‘Terrifies and delights’ A S Byatt, Guardian ‘Unforgettable’ Daily Telegraph
A brilliant first novel . . . shockingly good." —Rose Tremain, Daily Telegraph Ritwik Ghosh, twenty-two and recently orphaned, finds the chance to start a new life when he arrives in England from Calcutta. But Oxford holds little of the salvation Ritwik is looking for. Instead, he moves to London, where he drops out of official existence into a shadowy hinterland of illegal immigrants. The story that Ritwik writes to stave off his loneliness begins to find ghostly echoes in his own life. And, as present and past of several lives collide, Ritwik’s own goes into free fall.
An ingenious, devastating, explosive novel about the ramifications of choice from "one of the most original and talented authors working today" (NPR). "How ought one to live?" This is the question that obsesses London-based publisher Ayush, driving him to question every act of consumption. He embarks on a radical experiment in his own life and the lives of those connected to him: his practical economist husband; their twins; and even the authors he edits and publishes. One of those authors, a mysterious M. N. Opie, writes a story about a young academic involved in a car accident that causes her life to veer in an unexpected direction. Another author, an economist, describes how the gift of a cow to an impoverished family on the West Bengal–Bangladesh border sets them on a startling path to tragedy. Together, these connected narratives raise the question: How free are we really to make our own choices? In a scathing, compassionate quarrel with the world, Neel Mukherjee confronts our fundamental assumptions about economics, race, appropriation, and the tangled ethics of contemporary life.
Dazzling...by turns comic, lyrical and heartbreaking' Monica Ali 'Profound and beautiful' Paul Murray, author of The Bee Sting 'A vital, haunting, devastating read' Sarah Waters A publisher, who is at war with his industry and himself, embarks on a radical experiment in his own life and the lives of those connected to him; an academic exchanges one story for another after an accident brings a stranger into her life; and a family in rural India have their lives destroyed by a gift. These three ingeniously linked but distinct narratives, each of which has devastating unintended consequences, form a breathtaking exploration of freedom, responsibility, and ethics. What happens when market values replace other notions of value and meaning? How do the choices we make affect our work, our relationships, and our place in the world? Neel Mukherjee's new novel exposes the myths of individual choice, and confronts our fundamental assumptions about economics, race, appropriation, and the tangled ethics of contemporary life. Choice is a scathing, compassionate quarrel with the world, a masterful inquiry into how we should live our lives, and how we should tell them. 'A magnificent achievement' Namwali Serpell 'A superb writer... his greatest work yet' Michelle de Kretser
A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 A devastating novel of multiple narratives, “a mark of Neel Mukherjee’s range and force and ambition” (New York Times Book Review). A State of Freedom wrests open the central, defining events of our century: displacement and migration. Five characters, in very different circumstances—from a domestic cook in Mumbai to a vagrant and his dancing bear—find out the meanings of dislocation and the desire to get more out of life.
Nel 1967, nel cuore di Bhabanipur, a Calcutta, fa bella mostra di sé una grande casa a quattro piani, con un prezioso giardino sul retro. È la casa dei Ghosh, gente scaltra e abile che viene da Calcutta nord e possiede aziende – come la Charu Paper & Sons, una rinomata cartiera – e, a detta di tutti, eccellenti entrature nelle alte sfere del Partito del Congresso. Al piano superiore vivono Baba e Ma e la famiglia di Adinath, l’erede designato del grosso della ricchezza dei Ghosh, il primogenito che segue docilmente il sentiero tracciato per lui dal padre. Al piano immediatamente inferiore Bholanath, il più giovane dei Ghosh che dirige la Charu Books, un’azienda i cui guadagni se ne vanno quasi tutti per sostenere l’istruzione della figlia in una costosa scuola in lingua inglese, più sotto abita il secondogenito Priyo, e più sotto ancora Purba, la giovane vedova dell’ultimogenito. In una nicchia al centro della parete rivolta a est della casa, in uno sfavillio di seta rossa e oro, troneggia la divinità che regna sulla casa, la munifica dea della ricchezza, Lakshmi, col suo imperscrutabile mezzo sorriso. Prima di ogni pasto, la famiglia riunita attende, com’è costume della gente di Calcutta nord, che il primogenito deflori l’intonso monticello di riso cotto con un grosso cucchiaio. In casa Ghosh è, insomma, concesso a tutti il lusso di recitare la Grande Famiglia Felice. Quando cala il palcoscenico sulla recita, la realtà però svela il suo vero volto. Adinath cerca rifugio nella bottiglia di Johnnie Walker, nascosta in una libreria a vetri tra le opere complete di Rabindranath Tagore. Sa che la fortuna dei Ghosh è aggrappata a un’esile filo destinato inevitabilmente a rompersi. Tra le agitazioni sindacali, la fragilità del governo e del Partito del Congresso, la minacciosa ascesa del Partito comunista, la Charu & Sons non durerà a lungo: prima o poi crollerà sotto il ricatto dei creditori e dei sindacati. Nel chiuso della camera da letto Sandhya, sua moglie, si dispera ogni sera per le sorti di Supratik, il figlio scomparso. Animato da una sorta di incandescenza, che traspare dai suoi grandi e luminosi occhi neri, e, nello stesso tempo, da un’opacità interiore, quel figlio le ha sempre destato preoccupazione. Ora però, dopo aver preso parte ai moti studenteschi a Calcutta, si è pericolosamente unito ai militanti maoisti del Medinipur, nell’ovest del Bengala, dove imperversa la rivolta dei lavoratori delle piantagioni di tè, di coloro... la cui vita è un nulla destinato a tornare al nulla. Finalista al Man Booker Prize e vincitore dell’Encore 2015, La vita degli altri è un romanzo epico, coinvolgente e ricco di personaggi memorabili che, attraverso il declino di una famiglia, dipinge i turbolenti anni in cui il vento della modernità si è abbattuto sull’India. «Commuove profondamente». Amitav Ghosh «Atterrisce e, nello stesso tempo, delizia». A.S. Byatt «Indimenticabile». Daily Telegraph «Il ritratto devastante di una società in declino, e dell’inevitabile e violenta ribellione che ne consegue. Un romanzo feroce, spietato e brutalmente onesto». Anita Desai «Mukherjee può ricordare Tolstoj per la capacità di dar vita a una serie diversificata e ampia di personaggi, e di evocare all’improvviso mondi interiori». New York Times Book Review «La vita degli altri non è solo l'ennesimo, magistrale ritratto della dissoluzione di una famiglia, ma anche un libro dal respiro epico». Francesca Frediani, D la Repubblica delle Donne
‘Ma, I feel exhausted with consuming, with taking and grabbing and using. I am so bloated that I feel I cannot breathe any more. I am leaving to find some air, some place where I shall be able to purge myself, push back against the life given me and make my own. I feel I live in a borrowed house. It’s time to find my own . . . Forgive me . . .’ Calcutta, 1967. Unnoticed by his family, Supratik has become dangerously involved in student unrest, agitation, extremist political activism. Compelled by an idealistic desire to change his life and the world around him, all he leaves behind before disappearing is this note . . . The ageing patriarch and matriarch of his family, the Ghoshes, preside over their large household, unaware that beneath the barely ruffled surface of their lives the sands are shifting. More than poisonous rivalries among sisters-in-law, destructive secrets, and the implosion of the family business, this is a family unraveling as the society around it fractures. For this is a moment of turbulence, of inevitable and unstoppable change: the chasm between the generations, and between those who have and those who have not, has never been wider. Ambitious, rich and compassionate, The Lives of Others unfolds a family history, and anatomizes a social class in all its contradictions. It asks: can we escape what is in our blood? How do we imagine our place amongst others in the world? Can that be reimagined? And at what cost? This is a novel of rare power and emotional force.
A brilliant first novel . . . shockingly good." —Rose Tremain, Daily Telegraph Ritwik Ghosh, twenty-two and recently orphaned, finds the chance to start a new life when he arrives in England from Calcutta. But Oxford holds little of the salvation Ritwik is looking for. Instead, he moves to London, where he drops out of official existence into a shadowy hinterland of illegal immigrants. The story that Ritwik writes to stave off his loneliness begins to find ghostly echoes in his own life. And, as present and past of several lives collide, Ritwik’s own goes into free fall.
Longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature What happens when we attempt to exchange the life we are given for something better? Five people, in very different circumstances, from a domestic cook in Mumbai, to a vagrant and his dancing bear, and a girl who escapes terror in her home village for a new life in the city, find out the meanings of dislocation, and the desire for more. Set in contemporary India and moving between the reality of this world and the shadow of another, this novel delivers a devastating and haunting exploration of the unquenchable human urge to strive for a different life.
A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 A devastating novel of multiple narratives, “a mark of Neel Mukherjee’s range and force and ambition” (New York Times Book Review). A State of Freedom wrests open the central, defining events of our century: displacement and migration. Five characters, in very different circumstances—from a domestic cook in Mumbai to a vagrant and his dancing bear—find out the meanings of dislocation and the desire to get more out of life.
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