“How ought one to live?” This is the question that obsesses London-based publisher Ayush, driving him to question every act of consumption. He embarks on a radical experiment in his own life and the lives of those connected to his practical, economist husband; their twins; and even the authors he edits and publishes. One of those authors, a mysterious M. N. Opie, writes a story about a young academic involved in a car accident that causes her life to veer in an unexpected direction. Another author, an economist, describes how the gift of a cow to an impoverished family on the West Bengal–Bangladesh border sets them on a startling path to tragedy.
Together, these connected narratives raise the How free are we really to make our own choices? In a scathing, compassionate quarrel with the world, Neel Mukherjee confronts our fundamental assumptions about economics, race, appropriation, and the tangled ethics of contemporary life.
Neel Mukherjee was born in Calcutta. His first novel, A Life Apart, won the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for best fiction, among other honors, and his second novel, The Lives of Others, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Encore Prize. He lives in London.
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