Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 8 April 2010.
A Life Apart is a scalding novel about dislocations and alienations, about the tenuous and unconscious intersections of lives and histories and about the consolations of storytelling.
Ritwik Ghosh, twenty-two and recently orphaned, finds the chance to start a new life when he arrives in England from Calcutta. But Oxford holds little of the salvation Ritwik is looking for. Instead, he moves to London, where he drops out of official existence into a shadowy hinterland of illegal immigrants. The story that Ritwik writes to stave off his loneliness begins to find ghostly echoes in his own life. And, as present and past of several lives collide, Ritwik’s own goes into free fall.
"Incisive and poetic, sensual and intelligent, a novel with great breadth, heart and courage." Ali Smith
"The writing ... has a sculptured clarity. Assured and fearless ... This is subtle, precise writing that penetrates character and motive with astringent humour." The Times
"There are a lot of subtle cultural ironies in Neel Mukherjee"s debut novel, which is what makes the book such a delight ... A Life Apart is an elegant and accomplished debut, a novel of many shades. It blends the poignancy of a coming-of-age story with the rawer excitements of an urban thriller laced with sex and violence." The Sunday Telegraph
Author
About Neel Mukherjee
Neel Mukherjee was born in Calcutta and educated in Calcutta, Oxford, and Cambridge. He reviews fiction for The Times and Time Magazine Asia and has written for the TLS, theDaily Telegraph, theObserver, theNew York Times, the Boston Review, the Sunday Telegraph and Biblio. He is also a contributing editor to the Boston Review. He divides his time between London and the USA. A Life Apart is his first novel.
