A Fine Balance

Read the most by: boys and girls

Winner of The Giller Prize, the Commomwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, The Royal Society of Literature's Winifred Holtby Award, and shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry’s stunning internationally acclaimed bestseller, is set in mid-1970s India. It tells the story of four unlikely people whose lives come together during a time of political turmoil soon after the government declares a “State of Internal Emergency.” Through days of bleakness and hope, their circumstances – and their fates – become inextricably linked in ways no one could have foreseen. Mistry’s prose is alive with enduring images and a cast of unforgettable characters. Written with compassion, humour, and insight, A Fine Balance is a vivid, richly textured, and powerful novel written by one of the most gifted writers of our time.

"A masterpiece of illumination and grace. Like all great fiction, it transforms our understanding of life." — The Guardian (U.K.)

"This novel has the courage to remember and to reaffirm who we are, one by one; it continues, in the tradition of the great novels, to celebrate the luminous and unquenchable human spirit." — Globe and Mail

"Few have caught the real sorrow and inexplicable strength of India, the unaccountable crookedness and sweetness, as well as Mistry." — Time

"A towering masterpiece by a writer of genius. . . ." — The Independent (U.K.)