Neel Mukherjee

Upon changing his religion, a young man is denounced as an apostate and flees his country hiding in the back of a freezer lorry… After years of travelling and losing almost everything – his country, his children, his wife, his farm – an Afghan man finds unexpected warmth and comfort in a stranger’s home... A student protester is forced to leave his homeland after a government crackdown, and spends the next 25 years in limbo, trapped in the UK asylum system... Modelled on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the second volume of Refugee Tales sets out to communicate the experiences of those who, having sought asylum in the UK, find themselves indefinitely detained. Here, poets and novelists create a space in which the stories of those who have been detained can be safely heard, a space in which hospitality is the prevailing discourse and listening becomes an act of welcome.

"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.

'A brilliant, bleak moral maze of a novel' Guardian'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 WatersA 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

'Dazzling...by turns comic, lyrical and heartbreaking' Monica AliA 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 brilliant, bleak moral maze of a novel' Guardian'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 WatersA 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

"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.

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.

Den indiskfødte forfatter Neel Mukherjee har begået en kalejdoskopisk roman om et indisk samfund i dyb konflikt med sig selv. De andres liv dissekerer en nations sjæl mens den udfolder en families historie og giver læseren et sanseligt og dybdegående indblik i det stærkt traditionsbundne og ulige indiske samfund i 1960-1970’erne. I De andres liv møder vi familien Ghosh. På traditionel vis bor de tre generationer i samme hus, den aldrende patriark der har svært ved at slippe tøjlerne i familievirksomheden, de tre sønner som med vekslende interesse og dygtighed skal redde den gennem svære tider og arbejderuroligheder, og alle kvinderne som styrer det daglige liv og tjenestefolkene. Uden at familien har bemærket det er Supratik, et af børnebørnene, blevet involveret i ekstremistisk politisk aktivisme. Anført af en idealistisk trang til at ændre sit liv og verden omkring sig, efterlader han sig kun et brev før han forsvinder. Det er en tid præget af turbulens, af uundgåelige forandringer, kløften mellem generationerne og mellem de rige og de fattige har aldrig været større.5 stjerner Kristeligt Dagblad“Mukherjee forfærder og henrykker os på en gang.” – A. S. BYATT, THE GUARDIAN“En fremragende roman: fængslende, medfølende og kompleks, levende, musikalsk og vild.” – ROSE TREMAIN“Det er vildt, hensynsløst og brutalt ærligt.” – ANITA DESAIPå shortlisten til Man Booker-prisen

Longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian LiteratureWhat happens when we attempt to exchange the life we are given for something better?

In this stunning novel, prize-winning author Neel Mukherjee 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, to 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 of multiple narratives--formally daring, fierce, but full of pity--delivers a devastating and haunting exploration of the unquenchable human urge to strive for a different life.

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.

The aging patriarch and matriarch of the Ghosh family preside over their large household, made up of their five adult children and their respective children, unaware that beneath the barely ruffled surface of their lives the sands are shifting. Each set of family members occupies a floor of the home, in accordance to their standing within the family. Poisonous rivalries between sisters-in-law, destructive secrets, and the implosion of the family business threaten to unravel bonds of kinship as social unrest brews in greater Indian society. 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. The eldest grandchild, Supratik, compelled by his idealism, becomes dangerously involved in extremist political activism--an action that further catalyzes the decay of the Ghosh home. Ambitious, rich, and compassionate, The Lives of Others anatomizes the soul of a nation as it unfolds a family history, at the same time as it questions the nature of political action and the limits of empathy. It is a novel of unflinching power and emotional force.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker PrizeShortlisted for the Costa Novel AwardWinner of the Encore AwardShortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian LiteratureLonglisted for the IMPAC PrizeCalcutta, 1967.