'A Life Apart' tells two stories. The first is of Ritwik's; a story of a young man's escape from a blighted childhood of squalor and abuse in Calcutta to the edge of what he considers to be a new world, full of possibilities, in England, where he has a chance to rebuild his life and start all over again. But his past, especially the scarred, all-consuming relationship with his recently-dead mother, is a minefield: will Ritwik find the salvation he's looking for? Could it arrive in the form of the second story that comprises the novel, the one he is writing himself, the story of Miss Gilby, a marginal character from a Tagore novel? Or could it be in the figure of eighty-six-year-old Anne Cameron, fragile and damaged, who gives shelter to Ritwik in London in exchange of the care that she needs?

As present and past of several lives collide, Ritwik's own goes into free fall. Critically acclaimed when it was first published in India in 2008, this award-winning debut redefines the enigma of arrival for what has been called the multicultural society and is equally powerful in its depiction of India as in its portrayal of England. Written with unrelenting honesty, the ambitious narrative confronts the larger questions of human frailty and the strange manifestations of love. Unsentimental yet full of compassion, and written in prose of spare, lyrical beauty, 'A Life Apart' is a scorching novel that marks a new turning point in writing from and of the Subcontinent.

About the Author

Neel Mukherjee was born in Calcutta. 'A Life Apart', published in India first as 'Past Continuous' in 2008, is his first novel. He won the GQ (India) Writer of the Year award in the magazine's inaugural Men of the Year Awards in September. He lives in London.

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