A Fine Balance
A Fine Balance is Rohinton Mistry's eagerly awaited second novel and follows his critically acclaimed Such a Long Journey, the book that won three prestigious literary awards in 1991. Set in India in the mid-1970s, A Fine Balance is a richly textured novel which sweeps the reader up into its special world. Large in scope, the narrative focuses on four unlikely people who come together in a flat in the city soon after the government declares a "State of Internal Emergency." Through days of bleakness and hope, their lives become entwined in circumstances no one could have foreseen. There is Dina Dalal, a widow who makes a difficult living as a seamstress, determined not to remarry or rely on her brother's charity; Maneck Kohlah, a student from a hillstation near the Himalays, uprooted from home by his parents' wish to send him to college in the city; and Ishvar and his nephew, Omprakash, tailors by trade, who fleeing caste violence, leave their village in the interiour to find employment. The narrative reaches back in time to follow the stories of these four people - the lives they began with, the places they left behind. This stunning portrayal of a country undergoing chang
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What you might want to know about A Fine Balance
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In 1975 Bombay, the widow Dina Dalal takes in a young paying boarder named Maneck Kohlah and hires two tailors, Ishvar and his nephew Omprakash, to sew piecework in her small flat. Across two years of Indira Gandhi's Emergency, the four hold up their corner of a country tearing itself apart.
A Fine Balance is fictional but set against the real backdrop of the Indian Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi from 1975 to 1977. Rohinton Mistry drew on documented abuses, sterilization campaigns, and political conditions of the period for the historical context.
Yes. A Fine Balance won the Giller Prize in 1995, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book in 1996, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was selected for Oprah's Book Club in 2001.
The prose in A Fine Balance is accessible, but the subject matter is heavy. The novel depicts violence, caste injustice, and political brutality without flinching. Many readers find it emotionally demanding rather than stylistically difficult.
A Fine Balance was written by Rohinton Mistry, published in 1995 by Faber.
A Fine Balance is 719 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, A Fine Balance takes most readers 11 to 16 hours to finish.
A Fine Balance is a standalone novel by Rohinton Mistry, not part of a series.
A Fine Balance is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
