by Akhil Sharma
First published 2017
A woman wakes one June afternoon, seven months after her wedding, discovering she has fallen in love with her husband. This realization opens a window into the complexities of arranged marriage and the unexpected emotions that can emerge from duty. Sharma's characters navigate the space between tradition and modernity, between their Indian heritage and life in America. They confront alcoholic parents, neighborhood corruption, and the daily indignities of feeling foreign in their adopted home. Each story examines what it costs to build a life in exile and whether true belonging is possible when you carry one culture inside another. The characters search for home while managing the weight of family obligations, cultural expectations, and personal desires that often pull in opposite directions. These intimate portraits reveal how people adapt, survive, and sometimes flourish in the margins between worlds.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: America, India
Period: 21st-century
Paperback · Faber and Faber