Showing results by author "Vikram Seth" in All Categories

Two Lives is both a history of a violent century seen through the eyes of two survivors and an intimate portrait of their friendship, marriage, and abiding yet complex love. Part biography, part memoir, part meditation on our times, this is the true tale of two remarkable lives, a masterful telling from one of our greatest living writers.

A modern classic, this epic tale of families, romance and political intrigue, set in India, never loses its power to delight and enchant listeners. At its core, A Suitable Boy is a love story: the tale of Lata - and her mother's - attempts to find her a suitable husband, through love or through exacting maternal appraisal. At the same time, it is the story of India, newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis as a sixth of the world's population faces its first great general election and the chance to map its own destiny. 

A Suitable Boy is Vikram Seth's epic love story set in India. Funny and tragic, with engaging, brilliantly observed characters, it is as close as you can get to Dickens for the twentieth century. The story unfolds through four middle class families: the Mehras, Kappoors, Khans, and Chatterjis. Lata Mehra, a university student, is under pressure from her mother to get married. But not to just anyone she happens to fall in love with.

Award-winning novelist Vikram Seth is renowned worldwide for his magnum opus A Suitable Boy. But his dazzling debut, though less well-known, is equally innovative, masterly and ambitious. First published in 1986 and inspired by Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, it is written entirely in verse, comprising almost 600 stanzas of rhyming sonnets. This epic poem focusses on the interconnected stories of five young professionals, as they make their way in the 'unfettered city' of San Francisco in the '80s.

Michael is a violinist from Rochdale. He plays in a trio in Vienna with Julia, a pianist, and they are much taken with each other. But the trio splits up and they go their separate ways. One day in London, from the top of a double-decker bus, Michael catches a glimpse of Julia. They eventually meet up, and she tells him that she is contentedly married and has a child. Michael persuades her to visit Vienna and Venice with him. He discovers that Julia has become deaf, though her deafness comes and goes.

Two Lives tells the remarkable story of Vikram Seth's great uncle and aunt. His great uncle, Shanti, left India for medical school in Berlin in the 1930s and lodged with a German Jewish family. In the household was a daughter, Henny, who urged her mother "not to take the blackie". But a friendship developed and each managed to leave Germany and found their way to Britain as the Nazis rose to power.