“Every true word, upon being written, is like the full moon, and daily it wanes, and then passes entirely into obscurity. “Even the writer of the truth should not know the truth entire,” he thinks. One of the strongest pieces features a renowned journalist who has become disenchanted with his profession. Among the protagonists are an ambitious delivery carrier, a workman who oversteps his bounds and a lower-caste schoolboy who sets off an explosion in chemistry class to avenge the mockery he has endured. The text is structured as a week’s walking tour of the village italicized sections describing buildings and landmarks precede the stories of various characters. The outside world seldom intrudes on Kittur, yet the tensions of caste and the conflicts of religion course through the narrative, sparking comedy and tragedy-sometimes both at once. The title refers to the period between the assassinations of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, though there isn’t much evidence of chronological progression here. Adiga follows up his Man Booker Prize–winning debut ( The White Tiger, 2008) with a collection of interconnected stories about the village of Kittur in southwestern India.
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