Friend of My Youth (PB)

A writer arrives in Bombay on a book-related visit and finds himself in search of the city he grew up in and barely knows a city shaken to its core not long ago by the 2008 terrorist strikes-even as he takes for granted his errant local friend Ramu. A six-foot-tall Kannadiga and one-time junkie who cannot reconcile himself to modern-day adult life Ramu is an unlikely hero Bombay incarnate the writer is his mirrored counterpart in an extraordinary narrative about this city by the sea. Friend of My Youth is at once an unexpected exploration and a concentrated reminiscence woven around a series of visits to a city that was never really home a commentary on the power of memory and the stubborn interference of childhood with adult life a paean to the transformative power of friendship by one of our greatest living writers. About the Author AMITCHAUDHURI is the acclaimed author of seven novels includingOdysseusAbroad andA Strange and SublimeAddress and two books of essays. He has been awarded the Commonwealth Writers'Prize the Betty Trask Award the L.A. Times Book Prize and the Sahitya AkademiAward. He is a judge of the Man Booker International Prize.