Contemporary fiction books set in India (23)
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1.
The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay EN
IndiaDescription:
An elegant, epic debut novel that follows one young woman's search for a lost figure from her childhood, a journey that takes her from Southern India to Kashmir and to the brink of a devastating political and personal reckoning.
2.
A Burning by Megha Majumdar EN
Description:
For readers of Tommy Orange, Yaa Gyasi, and Jhumpa Lahiri, an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise-to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies-and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India. This is an electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe. They seek to rise-to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies. One is Jivan, a Muslim girl from the slums accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train bec... continue
3.
Description:
THE JANUARY 2022 REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK “In the way A Thousand Splendid Suns told of Afghanistan’s women, Thrity Umrigar tells a story of India with the intimacy of one who knows the many facets of a land both modern and ancient, awash in contradictions.” —Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours In this riveting and immersive novel, bestselling author Thrity Umrigar tells the story of two couples and the sometimes dangerous and heartbreaking challenges of love across a cultural divide. Indian American journalist Smita has returned to India to cover a story, b... continue
4.
Between the Assassinations by Aravind Adiga EN
Description:
Welcome to Kittur, India. Of its 193,432 residents, only 89 declare themselves to be without religion or caste. And if the characters in "Between the Assassinations" are any indication, Kittur is an extraordinary crossroads between the brightest minds and the poorest morals, the up-and-coming and the downtrodden, and the poets and the prophets of an India that modern literature has rarely addressed. A series of sketches that together form a blinding, brilliant, and brave mosaic of Indian life as it is lived in a place called Kittur, "Between the Assassinations," with all the humor, sympathy, a... continue
5.
Description:
'Anita Desai is a magnificent writer' - Salman Rushdie 'Every new work from her is a gift' - Kamila Shamsie 'Rosarita is transcendent . . . a testament to Desai’s enduring genius as a writer' - The Guardian 'Tantalising' - Financial Times From three times Booker-shortlisted author Anita Desai, Rosarita is a beautiful, haunting novel that explores memory, grief, and a young woman’s determination to forge her own path. A young student sits on a bench in a park in San Miguel, Mexico. Bonita is away from her home in India to learn Spanish. She is alone, somewhere she has no connection to. It is bl... continue
6.
Night Theater by Vikram Paralkar EN
Description:
A surgeon must bring a dead family back to life in this fabulist debut novel set in rural India, called “otherworldly” and “a haunting contemplation of life, death, the liminal space in between, and the dogged search for resurrection” (Kirkus Reviews, starred). Fleeing scandal in the city, a surgeon accepts a job at a village clinic. He buys antibiotics out of pocket, squashes roaches, and chafes at the interventions of the corrupt officer who oversees his work. But his outlook on life changes one night when a teacher, his pregnant wife, and their young son appear. Killed in a violent robbery,... continue
7.
The Association of Small Bombs : A Novel by Karan Mahajan EN
Description:
National Book Award Finalist Winner of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award Winner of the American Academy of Arts & Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award Winner of the Bard Fiction Prize One of the New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of the Year One of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book of the Year PEN Center USA Literary Award Finalist for Fiction Simpson Family Literary Prize Finalist Shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature Longlisted for the FT/Oppenheimer Emerging Vo... continue
9.
The Many Deaths of Laila Starr SC by Ram V EN
Description:
Humanity is on the verge of discovering immortality, which means the avatar of Death is out of a job… or is she? Humanity is on the verge of discovering immortality. As a result, the avatar of Death is cast down to Earth to live a mortal life in Mumbai as twenty-something Laila Starr. Struggling with her newfound mortality, Laila has found a way to be placed in the time and place where the creator of immortality will be born. Will Laila take her chance to stop mankind from permanently altering the cycle of life, or will death really become a thing of the past? A powerful new graphic novel from... continue
10.
A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman EN
Description:
In India, a girl who excels at Bharatanatyam dance refuses to give up after losing a leg in an accident.
11.
Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments by Hema Sukumar EN
Description:
A warm-hearted debut novel set in the beautiful coastal city of Chennai, for fans of Alexander McCall Smith, Joanna Nell and Graeme Simsion. Grand Life Apartments is a middle-class apartment block surrounded by lush gardens in the coastal city of Chennai, India. It is the home of Kamala, a pious, soon-to-be retired dentist who spends her days counting down to the annual visits from her daughter who is studying in the UK. Her neighbour, Revathi, is a thirty-two-year-old engineer who is frequently reminded by her mother that she has reached her expiry date in the arranged marriage market. Jason,... continue
12.
Love After Marriage by Bhagya Chandra EN
Description:
Revised and re-edited, September 2014 Compassionate and deeply emotional, 'Love after Marriage' is a contemporary love story about Deepak and Roshni, a young couple flung together in a traditional arranged marriage. The story authenticates the concept of an arranged marriage, which has prevailed in India for several hundred years. It centers on the conviction that husband and wife, strangers at the time of marriage, can develop a stronger love if they are honest and committed to each other. In Love after Marriage, Deepak and Roshni embark on the timeless journey of marriage, only to discover t... continue
13.
Description:
A heartfelt young adult graphic novel about an Indian-American teen's attempt to reconnect with her mother’s homeland through a magical pashmina shawl.
14.
Malgudi Days by R. K. Narayan EN
Description:
Four gems, with new introductions, mark acclaimed Indian writer R. K. Narayan's centennial Introducing this collection of stories, R. K. Narayan describes how in India "the writer has only to look out of the window to pick up a character and thereby a story." Composed of powerful, magical portraits of all kinds of people, and comprising stories written over almost forty years, Malgudi Days presents Narayan's imaginary city in full color, revealing the essence of India and of human experience. This edition includes an introduction by Pulitzer Prize- winning author Jhumpa Lahiri. For more than s... continue
15.
The Magnificent Ruins by Nayantara Roy EN
Description:
In this "rare feast" of a novel, a young Indian American book editor inherits her estranged family’s ancestral home–and their long-buried secrets (Rachel Lyon, author of Self-Portrait With Boy). It is the summer of 2015, and Lila De is on the verge of a breakthrough in her career at a prestigious New York publishing house. But when she gets a call from her mother in India, informing her that she’s inherited her family’s sprawling estate, she must confront the legacy of an extended family that she thought she left behind sixteen years ago. Returning to Kolkata reunites Lila with her mother afte... continue
16.
The Flat on Malabar Hill by Chitra Kallay EN
Description:
Vinod and Shanti are husband and wife rooted in Indian tradition, who experience both joy and despair through the lives of their two sons. Kishore is a brilliant MIT grad, who lives in the United States and is married to Americanized Anjali. Dev, the younger, plays drums in clubs and uses drugs. When Vinod has bypass surgery and Shanti is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Kishore brings his family back to Malabar Hill, and Vinod makes a painful decision.
17.
The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond EN
Description:
As soon as Binya saw the beautiful blue silk umbrella, she wanted it. She wanted it so badly that she was willing to give her lucky leopard's claw pendant in exchange. No-one in the village had such a fine umbrella, and everywhere Binya went the umbrella went too. Gradually it faded to a pale blue, and was patched in several places, but there was still many who envied Binya her treasured possession. And the most envious of them all was old Ram Bharosa, the shopkeeper, who decided that by some means he must own the blue umbrella.
18.
Oleander Girl by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni EN
Description:
Enjoying a sheltered childhood with adoring grandparents but troubled by the silence surrounding her parents' deaths, Korobi is prompted by a love note among her mother's possessions to travel from India to post-9/11 America in search of her true identity.
19.
Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya EN
Description:
This is the story of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India, whose whole life was a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loved.
20.
A House for Happy Mothers by Amulya Malladi EN
Description:
In trendy Silicon Valley, Priya has everything she needs: a loving husband, a career, and a home. But the one thing she wants most is the child she's unable to have. In a southern Indian village, Asha doesn't have much, but she wants a better education for her gifted son. Pressured by her family, Asha reluctantly checks into the Happy Mothers House, a baby farm where she can rent her only asset--her womb--to a childless couple overseas. To the dismay of friends and family, Priya places her faith in a woman she's never met to make her dreams of motherhood come true.
21.
Riot : A Novel by Shashi Tharoor EN
Description:
Who Killed Twenty-Four-Year-Old Priscilla Hart? And Why Would Anyone Want To Murder This Idealistic American Student Who Had Come To India To Volunteer In A Women S Health Programme? Had Her Work Made A Killer Out Of An Enraged Husband? Or Was Her Death The Result Of A Xenophobic Attack? Was She Involved In An Indiscriminate Love Affair That Had Spun Out Of Control? Or Was She Simply The Innocent Victim Of A Riot That Had Exploded In That Fateful Year Of 1987 Between Hindus And Muslims? Shashi Tharoor Experiments Brilliantly With Narrative Form, Chronicling The Mystery Of Priscilla Hart S Deat... continue
22.
Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna EN
Description:
A sweeping saga of a forbidden love that lasts for generations 'A MUST READ' INDEPENDENT Devi is a young girl living with on a coffee plantation in Coorg, India, at the end of the 19th century. Her best friend is Devanna, a boy whose mother has died in tragic circumstances. Over the years, Devi and Devanna become inseparable. However things change when Devi meets Muthi, a young man who has killed a tiger and is feted as the local hero. Although she is still a child and Muthi is a man, Devi vows that one day she will marry him. It is this love that will gradually drive a wedge between her and h... continue
23.
Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao EN
Description:
"Poornima and Savitha have three strikes against them: they are poor, they are ambitious, and they are girls. After her mother's death, Poornima has very little kindness in her life. She is left to care for her siblings until her father can find her a suitable match. So when Savitha enters their household, Poornima is intrigued by the joyful, independent-minded girl. Suddenly their Indian village doesn't feel quite so claustrophobic, and Poornima begins to imagine a life beyond arranged marriage. But when a devastating act of cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she h... continue
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