Our City That Year

<p>Winner English PEN x SALT Award 2025 From the International Booker Prize-winning author-translator duo of <em>Tomb of Sand</em> a powerful kaleidoscopic novel about a fractured India caught between rising fundamentalism and waning progressive ideals. </p><p>A city teeters on the edge of chaos. A society lies fractured along fault lines of faith and ideology. A playground becomes a battleground. A looming silence grips the public.</p><p>Against this backdrop Shruti a writer paralysed by the weight of events tries to find her words while Sharad and Hanif academics whose voices are drowned out by extremism find themselves caught between clichés and government slogans. And there's Daddu Sharad's father a beacon of hope in the growing darkness. As they each grapple with thoughts of speaking the unspeakable an unnamed narrator takes on the urgent task of bearing witness.</p><p>First published in Hindi in 1998 <em>Our City That Year</em> is a novel that defies easy categorisation. It's a time capsule a warning siren and a desperate plea. Geetanjali Shree's shimmering prose in Daisy Rockwell's nuanced and consummate translation takes us into a fever dream of fragmented thoughts and half-finished sentences mirroring the disjointed reality of a city under siege. Readers will find themselves haunted long after the final page grappling with questions that echo far beyond India's borders</p>