The Walls of Delhi

Uday Prakash translated by Jason Grunebaum

From one of India’s most original and audacious writers, Uday Prakash, come three stinging and comic tales, of living and surviving in today’s urban, globalised India.

In ‘The Walls of Delhi’, a sweeper discovers a cache of black money and escapes to see the Taj Mahal with his underage mistress; in ‘Mohandas’, a dalit races to reclaim his life stolen by an upper-caste identity thief; and finally, in ‘Mangosil’, a slum baby’s head gets bigger and bigger as he gets smarter and smarter, while his family tries to find a cure.

Thematically linked, these three stories, translated into English by Jason Grunebaum, reveal the real India, and lives of Indians, that rarely comes across in the media.

Awards

Shortlisted – The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2013

Praise for The Walls of Delhi:

These stories are rooted in a landscape of modern India so sharply evocative that it rises from the page in three thick and visceral dimensions…and remind you of the lightness of metaphor, the power of narrative and the human compulsion to stay hopeful, and connected, and alive.

THE AUSTRALIAN

 

Somehow within the pathos and fatalism, the three stories are illuminated by gentle sparkles of humour, hints of magic and beautiful descriptions of rural India…Prakash has compellingly created haunting veils which conceal the true lives of genuine people.

THE CANBERRA TIMES

Book details

PUBLICATION DATE: 2012
FORMAT: Paperback
EXTENT: 235 pages
SIZE: 210 x 134 mm
ISBN: 9781742583921
RIGHTS: World ex India & North America
CATEGORY: Book Club Books, Fiction, Jason Grunebaum, Uday Prakash,