Shashi Deshpande Boeken

An oncologist is deeply committed to alleviating her patients' suffering, navigating the emotional and ethical challenges of her profession. As she confronts the harsh realities of cancer treatment, her personal and professional lives intertwine, revealing the impact of her work on her relationships and sense of self. Through her journey, the narrative explores themes of compassion, resilience, and the complexities of life and death in the medical field.

‘For more than forty years, Shashi Deshpande has—as a novelist, short story writer, essayist, memoirist, and public figure (in short, as a concerned and engaged citizen)—audibly contributed to the lively public debates on the role of the writer and writing in India and to an understanding of India’s contemporary social, literary, and political issues. She has not been reluctant to insert critical and dissenting notes into the public discourse of her nation. We are reminded constantly by the essays collected here that Deshpande is, first and foremost, a reader and a listener, actively and compassionately engaged in dialogue with others. The present collection invites its readers to enter that fascinating dialogue.’— from the introduction by Nancy E. Batty and Dieter Riemenschneider

Shashi Deshpande's latest novel explores the lives of two women, one obsessed with music and the other a passionate believer in Communism, who break away from their families to seek fulfilment in public life. Savitribai Indorekar, born into an orthodox Hindu family, elopes with her Muslim lover and accompanist, Ghulaam Saab, to pursue a career in music. Gentle, strong-willed Leela, on the other hand, gives her life to the Party, and to working with the factory workers of Bombay. Fifty years after these events have been set in motion, Madhu, Leela's niece, travels to Bhavanipur, Savitribai's home in her last years, to write a biography of Bai. Caught in her own despair over the loss of her only son. Madhu tries to make sense of the lives of Bai and those around her, and in doing so, seeks to find a way out of her own grief.

Devayani chooses to live alone in the small town of Rajnur after her parents’ death, ignoring the gently voiced disapproval of her family and friends. Teaching English, creating a garden and making friends with Rani, a former actress who settles in the town with her husband and three children, Devayani’s life is tranquil, imbued with a hard-won independence. Then she meets Ashok Chinappa, Rajnur’s new District Superintendent of Police, and they fall in love despite the fact that Ashok is much older, married, and—as both painfully acknowledge from the very beginning—it is a relationship without a future. Deshpande’s unflinching gaze tracks the suffering, evasions and lies that overtake those caught in the web of subterfuge. There are no hostages taken in the country of deceit; no victors; only scarred lives. This understated yet compassionate examination of the nature of love, loyalty and deception establishes yet again Deshpande’s position as one of India’s most formidable writers of fiction.

The story follows Aru and Rohit as they navigate their new life as a married couple in a bustling city. Aru grapples with the loss of her mother and the abandonment by her father, serving as a pillar for her sisters and aunts. However, their lives are shattered once more by a tragic act of terrorism and a horrific crime, forcing Aru to confront profound challenges and resilience in the face of adversity.