An Obedient Father

"Sharma depicts a country that could have sprung from a mind poised somewhere between Dostoevsky's and Gogol's . . . [An] audacious yet plausible portrayal of a vividly unsympathetic character . . . Sharma's genius in this novel is how he makes the personal and political reflect on each other." -Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian

An Obedient Father introduced one of the most admired voices in contemporary fiction. Set in Delhi in the 1990s, it tells the story of an inept bureaucrat enmired in corruption, and of the daughter who alone knows the true depth of his crimes.

Decried in India for its frank treatment of child abuse, the novel was widely praised elsewhere for its compassion, and for a plot that mingled the domestic with the political, tragedy with farce. Yet, as Akhil Sharma writes in his foreword to this new edition, he was haunted by what he considered shortcomings within the book: almost twenty years later, he returned to face them. Here is the result, a leaner, surer version with even greater power.