Home - Softcover

Tender and funny, Manju Kapur's third novel is an engrossing story of family life across three generations of Delhi shopkeepers. When their traditional business - selling saris - is increasingly sidelined by the new fashion for jeans and stitched salwar kameez, the Banwari Lal family must adapt. But instead of branching out, the sons remain apprenticed to the struggling shop and the daughters are confined to the family home. As envy and suspicion grip parents and children alike, the need for escape - whether through illicit love or in the making of pickles or the search for education - becomes ever stronger. Very human and hugely engaging, "Home" is a masterful novel of the acts of kindness, compromise and secrecy that lie at the heart of every family.

Manju Kapur lives in New Delhi, where she is a teacher of English Literature at Miranda House College, Delhi University. Her first novel, Difficult Daughters (1998), received tremendous international acclaim, won the Commonwealth Prize for First Novels (Eurasia Section) and was a number one best-seller in India. A Married Woman (2003), her second book, was described by Julie Myerson as 'enthralling, convincing, absorbing ... A magnetically alert, deeply readable novel.'