A native of Bombay, Suketu Mehta gives us an insider’s view of this stunning metropolis. He approaches the city from unexpected angles, taking us into the criminal underworld of rival Muslim and Hindu gangs, following the life of a bar dancer raised amid poverty and abuse, opening the door into the inner sanctums of Bollywood, and delving into the stories of the countless villagers who come in search of a better life and end up living on the sidewalks. As each individual story unfolds, Mehta also recounts his own efforts to make a home in Bombay after more than twenty years abroad. Candid, impassioned, funny, and heartrending, Maximum City is a revelation of an ancient and ever-changing world.

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry’s stunning internationally acclaimed bestseller, is set in mid-1970s India. It tells the story of four unlikely people whose lives come together during a time of political turmoil soon after the government declares a “State of Internal Emergency.” Through days of bleakness and hope, their circumstances – and their fates – become inextricably linked in ways no one could have foreseen. Mistry’s prose is alive with enduring images and a cast of unforgettable characters. Written with compassion, humour, and insight, A Fine Balance is a vivid, richly textured, and powerful novel written by one of the most gifted writers of our time.

Mumbai? Bombay? How do we explain this city and ourselves within it? How do the city and the city dweller together allow for representations of urban life to arise in literature and the fine arts? This book is an understanding of Mumbai, both as an architectural and literary space, through the lens of spatial criticism and the technique of flânerie. As an icon of experiences, Mumbai is felt through the simultaneous acts of walking, observing, remembering and articulating. In analyzing four novels, namely Baumgartner’s Bombay, Ravan and Eddie, Shantaram and Baluta, the book claims that the characters and their authors offer an alternative vision of the city, as they also construct a transient place for themselves. This act of flânerie is an act of transgression as it turns the outside into the inside, changing public space into private space. As the characters serve to disrupt meaning, uncover hidden histories and expose power relations involved in the representation of place, they actualize many possibilities and meanings. Using the novel as a literary device, the authors have told stories, not only of the protagonist-flâneur, but also of people around them; sometimes in detail, sometimes in passing. In contesting, claiming and owning the lives, the stories, and the city, the humane aspect is never forgotten.

Over the course of the twentieth century, Bombay’s population grew twentyfold as the city became increasingly industrialized and cosmopolitan. Yet beneath a veneer of modernity, old prejudices endured, including the treatment of the Dalits. Even as Indians engaged with aspects of modern life, including the Marxist discourse of class, caste distinctions played a pivotal role in determining who was excluded from the city’s economic transformations. Labor historian Juned Shaikh documents the symbiosis between industrial capitalism and the caste system, mapping the transformation of the city as urban planners marked Dalit neighborhoods as slums that needed to be demolished in order to build a modern Bombay. Drawing from rare sources written by the urban poor and Dalits in the Marathi language—including novels, poems, and manifestos—Outcaste Bombay examines how language and literature became a battleground for cultural politics. Through careful scrutiny of one city’s complex social fabric, this study illuminates issues that remain vital for labor activists and urban planners around the world.

Nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel! In 19th century Bombay, Captain Jim Agnihotri channels his idol, Sherlock Holmes, in Nev March’s Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut. In 1892, Bombay is the center of British India. Nearby, Captain Jim Agnihotri lies in Poona military hospital recovering from a skirmish on the wild northern frontier, with little to do but re-read the tales of his idol, Sherlock Holmes, and browse the daily papers. The case that catches Captain Jim's attention is being called the crime of the century: Two women fell from the busy university’s clock tower in broad daylight. Moved by Adi, the widower of one of the victims — his certainty that his wife and sister did not commit suicide — Captain Jim approaches the Parsee family and is hired to investigate what happened that terrible afternoon. But in a land of divided loyalties, asking questions is dangerous. Captain Jim's investigation disturbs the shadows that seem to follow the Framji family and triggers an ominous chain of events. And when lively Lady Diana Framji joins the hunt for her sisters’ attackers, Captain Jim’s heart isn’t safe, either. Based on a true story, and set against the vibrant backdrop of colonial India, Nev March's Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning lyrical debut, Murder in Old Bombay, brings this tumultuous historical age to life.

Set in contemporary India, Love and Longing in Bombay confirms Vikram Chandra as one of today's most exciting young writers. In five haunting tales he paints a remarkable picture of Bombay - its ghosts, its passions, its feuds, its mysteries - while exploring timeless questions of the human spirit. 'When Midnight's Children first arrived on the scene, it became necessary to revaluate stories from and about India. With Vikram Chandra's collection - his second book - it is time to take stock again . . . Breathtaking.' Observer

An enormously satisfying, exciting and enriching book, Vikram Chandra's novel draws the reader deep into the lives of detective Sartaj Singh and Ganesh Gaitonde, the most wanted gangster in India. Sartaj, the only Sikh inspector in the whole of Mumbai, is used to being identified by his turban, beard and the sharp cut of his trousers. But 'the silky Sikh' is now past forty, his marriage is over and his career prospects are on the slide. When Sartaj gets an anonymous tip off as to the secret hideout of the legendary boss of the G-company, he's determined that he'll be the one to collect the prize. This is a sprawling, epic novel of friendships and betrayals, of terrible violence, of an astonishing modern city and its underworld. Drawing on the best of Victorian fiction, mystery novels, Bollywood movies and Vikram Chandra's years of first hand research on the streets of Mumbai, this novel reads like a potboiling page-turner but resonates with the intelligence and emotional depth of the best of literature.