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.

Set in Bombay in the mid-1990s, Family Matters tells a story of familial love and obligation, of personal and political corruption, of the demands of tradition and the possibilities for compassion. Nariman Vakeel, the patriarch of a small discordant family, is beset by Parkinson’s and haunted by memories of his past. He lives with his two middle-aged stepchildren, Coomy, bitter and domineering, and her brother, Jal, mild-mannered and acquiescent. But the burden of the illness worsens the already strained family relationships. Soon, their sweet-tempered half-sister, Roxana, is forced to assume sole responsibility for her bedridden father. And Roxana’s husband, besieged by financial worries, devises a scheme of deception involving his eccentric employer at a sporting goods store, setting in motion a series of events that leads to the narrative’s moving outcome. Family Matters has all the richness, the gentle humour, and the narrative sweep that have earned Mistry the highest of accolades around the world.

Such a Long Journey is set in (what was then) Bombay against the backdrop of war in the Indian subcontinent and the birth of Bangladesh, telling the story of the peculiar way in which the conflict impinges on the lives of Gustad Noble, an ordinary man, and his family. It was the brilliant first novel by one of the most remarkable writers to have emerged from the Indian literary tradition in many years. It was shortlisted for the 1991 Booker Prize, and won the 1992 Commonwealth Writers Prize.

In these eleven stories, Rohinton Mistry opens our eyes and our hearts to the rich, complex patterns of life inside Firozsha Baag, an apartment building in Bombay. Here are Jaakaylee, the ghost-seer, and Najamai, the only owner of a refrigerator in Firozsha Baag; Rustomji the Curmudgeon and Kersi, the young boy whose life threads through the book and who narrates the final story as an adult in Toronto. We see their passions, their worst fears, their betrayals, and their humorous acts of revenge. Witty and poignant, in turns, these intersecting stories create a finely textured mosaic of lives and illuminate a world poised between the old ways and the new.

Contributed articles on the works of Rohinton Mistry, b. 1952, Indian born Canadian author.

Firozsha Baag is an apartment building in Bombay. Its ceilings need plastering and some of the toilets leak appallingly, but its residents are far from desperate, though sometimes contentious and unforgiving. In these witty, poignant stories, Mistry charts the intersecting lives of Firozsha Baag, yielding a delightful collective portrait of a middle-class Indian community poised between the old ways and the new. "A fine collection...the volume is informed by a tone of gentle compassion for seemingly insignificant lives."--Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. The award-winning novelist Rohinton Mistry is recognised as one of the most important contemporary writers of postcolonial literature. This study - the first of its kind - will provide scholars and students with an insight into the key features of Mistry's work. Peter Morey suggests how the author's writing can be read in terms of recent Indian political history, his native Zoroastrian culture and ethos, conventions of oral storytellling common to Persia and South Asia, and the experience of migration which now sees him living in Canada. The texts are viewed through the lens of diaspora and minority discourse theories to show how Mistry's writing is illustrative of marginal positions in relation to sanctioned national identities.