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One Small Voice

One Small Voice

Summary

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'A joy to read, a full universe of feeling, an effortless page-turner by a born storyteller
. One Small Voice is the great contemporary middle class Indian novel, showing us ordinary people knocked about by the specific sociopolitical currents of turn-of-the-century India, but also wrestling with universal challenges of family, ambition, friendship and shame' Max Porter, author of The Death of Francis Bacon
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India, 1992. The country is ablaze with riots. In Lucknow, ten-year-old Shubhankar witnesses a terrible act of mob violence in which his family are complicit: an act that will alter the course of his life.

In the two decades that follow, Shabby must wrestle with the ghosts of his past, the expectations of his family, and the seismic shifts taking place around him as the country enters the new millennium. As an adult in Mumbai, he encounters Syed and Shruti, who, like him, are seeking the freedom to rewrite their stories while navigating the contradictions of modern India. As the rising tide of nationalism sweeps across the country, their friendship becomes a rock they all cling to.

Until one day, Shabby makes a split-second decision that will change everything...

Dazzling and deeply moving, One Small Voice is a novel of modern India: of violence and prejudice, friendship and loyalty, community and tradition, and of a young man coming of age in a country on fire.

©2023 Santanu Bhattacharya (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Reviews

  • Epic in scope and yet composed of intimate moments ... One Small Voice will be one of the best debuts this year
    Guardian

About the author

Santanu Bhattacharya

Santanu Bhattacharya grew up in India, and studied at the University of Oxford and the National University of Singapore. He is the winner of the 2023 Desmond Elliott Prize Residency and the 2021 Mo Siewcharran Prize. His first novel, One Small Voice, was an Observer best debut novel of 2023, and was shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award and the Society of Authors’ Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize. He now lives in London.
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