A Suitable Boy

Puts a subcontinent between its covers… [A] massive and magnificent book.’—The Sunday Times ‘Set in post-independence India, the novel follows for eighteen months or so four linked families in Calcutta, the province of Purva Pradesh, and the cities—Delhi, Kanpur, Lucknow—trawled by the heroine’s mother in her search for a “suitable boy”… But the greatness of the novel, its unassailable truthfulness, owes less to research than to imagination, an instinctive knowledge of the human heart—with all its varieties of kindness and cruelty… As with all the best books, one feels only dismay when the pages on the right of the tome start thinning out.’—The Observer ‘This novel, so vast and so amiably peopled, is a long, sweet, sleepless pilgrimage to life… [It] covers India like a sun, warming a whole country in its historical rays.’—The Guardian
A magnificent display of artistic control… A Suitable Boy is a page-turner.’— Los Angeles Times book to restore the serious reading public’s faith in the contemporary novel… You should make time for [A Suitable Boy]. It will keep you company for the rest of your life.’—The Times