No Other World

Rahul Mehta

In this debut novel by an award-winning short-story writer, 12-year-old Kiran Shah, the American-born son of Indian immigrants, longingly observes his quintessentially American neighbours, the Bells, in a rural community in western New York. Meanwhile, Kiran’s parents attempt to adjust to a bewildering new country: his father is haunted by thoughts of the brother he left behind and his mother struggles to accept a life with a man she did not choose. As he grows older, Kiran finds himself perpetually on the outside, both as an Indian-American torn between two cultures and as a homosexual man in a homophobic society.

Harper Collins, 304 pages, Rs 499