A State of Freedom
by Neel Mukherjee
*Selected as a 2017 Book of the Year in the Guardian, New Statesman and The Irish Times* 'A brave and frequently devastating novel whose themes of displacement and dehumanisation are all too timely' Paul Murray'The most astonishing and brilliant novel I have read in a long, long time' Hanya YanagiharaWhat happens when we attempt to exchange the life we are given for something better? Can we transform the possibilities we are born into? A State of Freedom prises open the central, defining events of our century – displacement and migration – but not as you imagine them. Five characters, in very different circumstances, from a domestic cook in Mumbai, to a vagrant and his dancing bear, and 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...