Neel Mukherjee Books in Order

Orphaned Ritwik leaves Calcutta for England hoping to begin again, but Oxford offers little relief from his past. Moving into London’s undocumented world, he turns to writing as the story he invents begins to echo his increasingly unstable life.

In 1967 Calcutta, a young man leaves his prosperous family for radical political activism. Behind him, rivalries, business failures and buried secrets begin unraveling the household, reflecting the wider social conflicts transforming the world beyond its walls.

Five lives across contemporary India reveal the hopes and costs of seeking a different future. A cook, a wandering bear-handler and a girl escaping village terror are among those confronting displacement, inequality and the uncertain possibilities of starting again.

A publisher’s radical experiment, an academic’s encounter after an accident and an unexpected gift to a rural family form three linked narratives. Their consequences examine how money, responsibility and inherited inequality complicate the choices people believe they freely make.