“A towering masterpiece by a writer of genius.” — Independent
India, 1975. An unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency.
Amidst a backdrop of wild political turmoil, the lives of four unlikely strangers collide forever. In the tiny flat of the widowed Dina Dalal, two tailors driven from their village — Ishvar Darji and his nephew Omprakash — and Maneck Kohlah, a young student down from a Himalayan hill-station, begin painfully constructing new lives together. Their fates become entwined in circumstances none of them could have foreseen.
“You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.”
An epic panorama of modern India in all its corruption, violence and heroism, A Fine Balance is Rohinton Mistry's prize-winning masterpiece — a Dickensian modern classic brimming with compassion, humour and insight, and a hymn to the human spirit in an inhuman state.
Praise
“A masterpiece of illumination and grace. Like all great fiction, it transforms our understanding of life.” — Guardian
“Magical.” — New York Times
“Monumental.” — Time
“Astonishing.” — Wall Street Journal
Awards & honours
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Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, 1996
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Winner of the Giller Prize, 1995
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Winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book
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Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction
- Shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- Named by The Telegraph among the ten greatest Asian novels of all time
About the author
Rohinton Mistry was born in Bombay in 1952 and emigrated to Canada in 1975. He is the author of the story collection Tales from Firozsha Baag and three novels — Such a Long Journey, A Fine Balance and Family Matters — all three of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2011 his body of work was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, and in 2012 he received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. His work has been published in more than thirty-five languages.
Perfect for readers of
Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy, Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, and the great social novels of Dickens.
