A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
This is a tale of contemporary India that chronicles the sufferings of outcasts and innocents trying to survive in the "State of Internal Emergency" of the 1970s and grapples with the great question of how to live in the face of death and despair. Two are tailors, one is a student who arrives in the city to study and the fourth is a widowed seamstress. For a few months, this unlikely quartet share a tranquil happiness in a nameless city--a city of squalid streets teeming with beggars, where politicians, in the name of progress, abuse the poor and the powerless.
God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
In 1969, in Kerala, India, Rahel and her twin brother, Estha, struggle to forge a childhood for themselves amid the destruction of their family life. They discover that the entire world can be transformed in a single moment.
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
This collection of stories blends together elements of Indian traditions and American culture. The complexities created challenge the characters to make their ways in both cultures. Bengali immigrants and their American children are observed and observe themselves as they travel the path of assimilation.
One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
After an earthquake, nine people of diverse backgrounds are trapped together in the basement of the Indian consulate in an unidentified American city. Snapshots are presented that speak about the characters, so unexpectedly drawn together.
