Summary
A stunning debut about Delhi, desire and how much we are prepared to risk for our freedom
Shortlisted for the 2015 Prix Medicis
My boyfriend died when I was twenty-one. His body was left lying broken in the highway out of Delhi while the sun rose in the desert to the east. I wasn’t there, I never saw it. But plenty of others saw, in the trucks that passed by without stopping, and from the roadside dhaba where he’d been drinking all night.
Then they wrote about him in t…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781911214922 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1911214926 |
| Author: | Deepti Kapoor |
| Publisher: | Vintage Publishing |
| Imprint: | Jonathan Cape |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 240 |
| Release Date: | 25 May 2017 |
| Weight: | 195g |
| Dimensions: | 216mm x 135mm x 15mm |
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What They're Saying
Critics Review
The title character of Deepti Kapoor’s searing debut is dead by Line 1, but I still read A Bad Character in one frantic sitting… Intoxicating.
The title character of Deepti Kapoor’s searing debut is dead by Line 1, but I still read A Bad Character in one frantic sitting… Intoxicating. – Catherine Lacey * New York Times *
A stylishly written, powerfully moving love story, set against the bleak beauty and baroque decay of 21st century Delhi - its rubble, construction sites, wastelands, and the poisoned ooze of its dead river. What Twilight in Delhi is to the twentieth-century Indian novel, A Bad Character is to the twenty-first: the essence of India’s corrupt capital, brilliantly and darkly distilled. This is a remarkable debut from a major new talent. – William Dalrymple, author of The Last Mughal
Twenty-first-century Delhi needed a voice, and here it is, in all its dark majesty. A Bad Character comes as if from nowhere: it is an alchemical marvel, a novel of stunning beauty and originality. – Rana Dasgupta
A Bad Character…captures [Delhi] in such perfect detail that I felt I could smell the food stalls, feel the crush of people and the heat rising from the pavements… As well as her transcendent eye for detail, the love story at the heart of this book is honest and deeply unsettling, making it a compelling read. – Kerry Hudson * Herald *
A fiery, incandescent debut, A Bad Character artfully captures the fragmented psyche and perilous desires of a woman alone in New Delhi… [Kapoor’s] writing has the flexible, lyrical cadence of a prose poem… A Bad Character is a powerful, psychologically acute, elegantly crafted debut that promises great things to come from Kapoor. – Claire Fallon * Huffington Post *
The characters are interesting and the story grips, but the heart of this book is Delhi: filthy, challenging, destructive and thrillingly alive. A powerful read. – Rita Carter * Daily Mail *
A poignant and impressionistic portrait of the end of adolescence and a changing world. – Charlotte Runcie * Daily Telegraph *
Annihilating desire laps at the edges of Deepti Kapoor’s A Bad Character…offers vivid insights into what it means to be a middle-class woman in 21st-century Delhi. – Hephzibah Anderson * Observer *
Dark, sexy, magnetic, this is a grown-up coming of age story. * Condé Nast Traveller *
Beautifully describes every scent, sight and sound of Delhi… A love letter to India, while fully acknowledging its flaws… the country’s dangers and restrictions, especially for women. * A Curious Animal *
About The Author
Deepti Kapoor
Deepti Kapoor was born in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, and grew up in Bombay, Bahrain, and Dehradun. In 1997, she attended the University of Delhi to study journalism and later completed an MA in Social Psychology. She spent the next decade working for various publications, driving around the city, finding stories, and learning its streets. She now lives in Goa.
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