John Murray, WW Norton, HarperCollins Canada and HarperCollins India, who published Manu Joseph's award-winning debut novel SERIOUS MEN have all signed up for his new novel THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE. Podium in Holland have also bought rights.
THE
ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE is set in Madras in the 1990s, where
every adolescent male is preparing for the toughest exam in the world.
Seventeen-year-old Unni has done something terrible and the only clue to
his actions lies in a comic strip he has drawn, which has fallen into
the hands of his father Ousep - an alcoholic journalist with a wife who
is fantasizing about his early death, and a younger son, Thoma, puzzled
by the world he is growing into. Ousep begins investigating Unni's
extraordinary life, but as he circles closer and closer to the truth, he
unravels a secret that shakes his family to the core.
John
Murray will publish this powerful, darkly comic story in August 2012 and
Manu Joseph will be in the UK for the launch. Manu is the editor of the
Indian newsweekly, OPEN, and a columnist with The International Herald
Tribune, the global edition of The New York Times.
Prizes and Praise for SERIOUS MEN:
Winner of the Hindu Best Fiction Award 2010
Shortlisted for Man Asian Literary Prize 2010
Shortlisted for Commonwealth Prize South Asia & Europe Best First Book 2011
Shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2011
Listed as one of Huffington Post's Best Books 2010; A New York Times 'Editor's Choice'
Chosen by The Telegraph as one of their 2010 'First Novels to Savour'
Listed in the Independent's Pick of 2010: The Best Books for Christmas
'The
finest comic novelists know that a small world can illuminate a culture
and an age. With this funny-sad debut, Joseph does just that for
surging, fractious India.' -- Boyd Tonkin, Independent
'Manu
Joseph shows how petty jealousies in India can motivate and divide as
surely as major societal differences. His skills as a writer are
tremendous - he invests even the most ordinary interactions with keenly
observed human quirks, and almost every sentence is a joy to read for
its ingeniously constructed language. This is a compellingly
entertaining novel - witty, subversive, extraordinarily perceptive,
deliciously wicked.' -- Manil Suri, author of THE DEATH OF VISHNU
'This
ambitious debut cleverly weaves diverging plots of love, knowledge,
class, and ambition…Joseph's finely portrayed characters exude wit and
warmth in this engaging and introspective tale.'-- Leah Strauss, Booklist