A novel of multiple narratives, set in contemporary India, the new book from Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author Neel Mukherjee explores the urge to escape the life we are given for something better
Neel Mukherjee is the author of two previous novels, A Life Apart (2010), which won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for best novel, and The Lives of Others (2014), which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Costa Best Novel Award, and won the Encore Prize for best second novel.
An extraordinary, compassionate, complex, hard-hitting wonder of a
book. It is in a class of its own.
*Rose Tremain*
Neel Mukherjee's breathtaking A State of Freedom is that rarest,
most wonderful of things: a book both literarily dextrous, full of
unforgettable scenes, images, language, and characters, as well as
a furious, unsparing, clear-eyed study of how a society's gross
inequities of money and power demean and deform the human
condition. The most astonishing and brilliant novel I have read in
a long, long time.
*Hanya Yanagihara*
Fans of Neel Mukherjee expect that his books will be exceptional
and once again he has produced just that. A State of Freedom is
formally audacious, vividly observed, and deeply imagined.
Unsentimental yet full of heart, grimly real yet mysteriously
dreamlike, with characters who continue to live their complicated
lives long after you've turned the last page. Just a beautiful,
beautiful piece of work.
*Karen Joy Fowler*
A State of Freedom is an extraordinary achievement. Subtle and
multi-layered, it's a study of the brutality of social divisions,
written with tremendous tenderness; a work that insists on the
dignity of figures obliged to lead undignified lives. A powerful,
troubling novel. The moment I finished it, I began it again.
*Sarah Waters*
A State of Freedom is a novel like no other -- its prose is so
rich, unequivocally precise and graceful that it allows Mukherjee
to illustrate the most horrific of experiences with stunning
compassion. A State of Freedom is more than a novel—it is an
immersive experience. He writes like a painter, his language is his
palette, one reminiscent of the late Howard Hodgkin's. Mukherjee
brings to life the variation of India’s cities and towns in a dense
multi-layered world where modern life, by accident or intention,
tears at traditions that are centuries old. Throughout we are
reminded of how little power many have over their lives and of
emotional and financial economies so fragile that something as
small as a single egg can carry great weight.
*A.M. Homes*
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