The Romantics

The Romantics tells the story of Samar, a young graduate from Allahabad, restless within his uncertain society and fracturing caste system, who escapes a future of small-town jobs to live in the holy city of Benares and lose himself in books and solitude. But far from offering him an un-distracted existence, the city forces all his silent desires into the light. Miss West, an English expatriate, introduces him to a world of bewildering otherness: idealist Americans, Buddhist converts, and Catherine, the Frenchwoman who will ultimately destroy his isolation and equanimity. And always, at the edge of Samar’s consciousness, is Rajesh, the poor student he meets at the university whose tragically compromised life shows him that a self divided between two worlds can inhabit neither fully. With his wonderfully vivid and unsentimental prose Mishra captures the inner turmoil of people forced to adjust to an ever-changing world. A profoundly moving story of love and delusion, The Romantics is a stunning debut.