A Fine Balance
Recommended by Oprah Winfrey, Stuart Rutherford, Jacqueline Novogratz, and 4 others. See all reviewsRanked #2 in Indian, Ranked #6 in Indian Author — see more rankings.
With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India.
The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
As... more
The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
As... more
Reviews and Recommendations
We've comprehensively compiled reviews of A Fine Balance from the world's leading experts.
Oprah Winfrey CEO/O NetworkRecommends this book
Stuart Rutherford A great romp of a novel, set in western India. In a way, it’s a precursor of Slumdog Millionaire, but much darker. (Source)
Jacqueline Novogratz A Dickensian novel that captures the essence of being poor in urban India in ways extraordinary and deeply human. (Source)
Michael Peel The book is full of these terrible moments and yet at the end of it you feel strangely uplifted. (Source)
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