Baumgartner's Bombay

Hugo Baumgartner is a firangi wherever he goes―too dark for Hitler’s Germany too fair for India. Escaping the Nazi regime but losing his parents to it the wandering Jew builds a life in India only to be interrupted by war and then partition―and finally finds a home in multitudinous Bombay. We meet him as a kindly rather hapless old man who spends his days making the rounds of local teashops to scavenge for his many cats. Then one day at the Café du Paris one of his regular haunts he encounters a surly young German of the new order―a drug-crazed hippie who will change his life forever. Set in Berlin Venice Calcutta―and of course Bombay―Baumgartner’s Bombay is the story of the twentieth century and a memorable portrait of Baumgartner survivor victim everyman. About the Author Anita Desai was born and brought up in India and has written widely for both adults and children. She has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize and has won the Guardian Fiction Award.