Manju Kapur

Spanning three generations, this story centres around a woman born at the turn of the 20th century into an austere Punjabi family. It tells of an illicit affair and its wider political and social implications - not least the vexed issue, for Indian women, of marriage versus education.

Difficult Daughters

Astha has everything an educated, middle-class Delhi woman could ask for - a loving husband and affluent surroundings - and yet is consumed with a sense of dissatisfaction. She begins an extra-marital affair with a younger woman, the widow of a political activist and jeopardizes everything.

A Married Woman

When their traditional business - selling saris - is increasingly sidelined by the new fashion for jeans and stitched salwar kameez, the Banwari Lal family must adapt. But instead of branching out, the sons remain apprenticed to the struggling shop and the daughters are confined to the family home. As envy and suspicion grip parents and children alike, the need for escape - whether through illicit love or in the making of pickles or the search for education - becomes ever stronger. Very human and hugely engaging, Home is a masterful novel of the acts of kindness, compromise and secrecy that lie at the heart of every family.

Home

The immigrant

Custody

The story of Tapti Gaina is intimately linked with the lives of two men, her husband and his brother. Exploring caste, student politics, the freedom struggle and the Emergency, Brothers traces the history of the Gaina family, beginning with their village origins across the emerging metropolis of Ajmer and ending at the height of political power in Jaipur. It is a masterful portrayal of ambition, desire, betrayal and anguish, enacted against the shifting terrain of family dynamics.

A Novel

Brothers

Set in bustling Karol Bagh, Home is the story of three generations of a traditional sari-selling family, whose business is threatened by an increasing demand for ready-to-wear salwar kameez and jeans. Lala Banwari Lal, patriarch of the family, must cope as his family is faced with problems foreign to his ethos; infertility, female education, as well as the desire for both love and independence. Home is a masterful novel about the inconstancy and foibles of people, of envy, suspicion, secrecy and acts of kindness and of compromise that lie at the heart of every family. Shimmering with detail, emotional acuity and humour, it is a comment on the lives we lead. With a gently penetrative gaze, it casts a light on the smothering closeness of Indian families and their devastating restrictions. Following Difficult Daughters and A Married Woman, award winner Manju Kapur brings us this tender, absorbing tale that holds something for each of us.

This is Hindi Translation of English Book 'The Immigrant' written by Manju Kapur. Nina, at thirty, sees herself as increasingly off the shelf. But then unexpectedly, a proposal arrives. Ananda is a dentist in Halifax, Canada. The two marry and she leaves her home and her country to build a new life with him. But there is always more to marriage than courtship. And as Nina discovers truths about her husband – both sexual and emotional – her fragile new life in Canada begins to unravel. The Immigrant is another mesmerizing saga about the complexities of arranged marriage and NRI life from this most beloved of novelists.

Aapravasi

Set against the tumult of the 1947 Partition, Manju Kapur’s acclaimed first novel captures a life torn between family, desire, and love The one thing I had wanted was not to be like my mother. Virmati is the eldest of eleven children, born to a respectable family in Amritsar. Her world is shaken when she falls in love with a married man. Charismatic Harish is a respected professor and her family’s tenant. Virmati takes up with Harish and finds herself living alongside his first wife. Set in Amritsar and Lahore and narrated by Virmati and her daughter, Ida, a divorcée on a quest to understand and connect with her departed mother, Difficult Daughters is a stunning tale of motherhood, love, and finding one’s identity in a nation struggling to discover its own. Winner of the 1999 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book (Eurasia Region) and shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award in India.

An unforgettable novel about what happens when a marriage collapses Shagun is a woman of unassailable social standing, married to a man chosen for her—a rising executive. Her lover is her husband’s boss. She asks for a divorce, and all hell breaks loose. Locked in a venomous legal battle for custody of their eight-year-old son and two-year-old daughter, Shagun and Raman begin a journey that will have unforetold consequences. Set against the backdrop of upper-middle-class South Delhi, Custody is both a searing indictment of India’s judicial system and an intimate portrait of a failing marriage and a family.

Raman is a fast rising marketing executive at a global drinks company; Shagun is his extraordinarily beautiful wife. With his glittering future, her vivid beauty, and their two adorable children—eight year old Arjun who looks just like her and two year old Roohi who looks just like him—the pair appear to have everything. Then Shagun meets Raman’s dynamic new boss Ashok and everything changes. Once lovers and companions, husband and wife become enemies locked in an ugly legal battle over their two children. Caught in their midst is the childless Ishita who is in love with the idea of motherhood. Custody is the riveting story of how family-love can disintegrate into an obsession to possess children, body and soul, as well as a chilling critique of the Indian judicial system. Told with nuance, sympathy, and clear-sightedness, it confirms Manju Kapur’s reputation as the great chronicler of the modern Indian family.

Nina, at thirty, sees herself as increasingly off the shelf. But then unexpectedly, a proposal arrives. Ananda is a dentist in Halifax, Canada. The two marry and she leaves her home and her country to build a new life with him. But there is always more to marriage than courtship. And as Nina discovers truths about her husband – both sexual and emotional – her fragile new life in Canada begins to unravel. The Immigrant is another mesmerizing saga about the complexities of arranged marriage and NRI life from this most beloved of novelists.

Manju Kapur

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