Family Matters

Nariman Vakeel, a seventy-nine-year-old Parsi widower, beset by Parkinson's disease and haunted by memories of the past, lives in a once-elegant apartment with his two middle-aged stepchildren. When his condition worsens he is forced to take up residence with Roxana, his own daughter, her husband, Yezad, and their two young sons. The effect of the new responsibility on Yezad, who is already besieged by financial worries, pushes him into a scheme of deception. This sets in motion a series of events - a great unravelling and a revelation of the family's love-torn past, that leads to the narrative's final outcome.

Rohinton Mistry is the author of three novels, all of which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and a collection of short stories, Tales from Firozsha Baag. His first novel, Such a Long Journey, won the Governor General's Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, and the SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award. It was made into an acclaimed feature film in 1998. A Fine Balance was winner of the Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize, the Royal Society of Literature's Winifred Holtby Award, and Denmark's ALOA Prize. It was a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, and the Prix Femina. In 2002, A Fine Balance was selected for Oprah's Book Club. Family Matters wasa finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. It won the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for Fiction and the Canadian Authors Association Fiction Award. Born in Bombay, Rohinton Mistry came to Canada in 1975 after completing a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Economics at Bombay University. He has accepted honorary degrees from the University of Ottawa (Doctor of the University, 1996), the University of Toronto (Doctor of Letters, 1999), York University (Doctor of Letters, 2003), and Ryerson University (Doctor of Letters, 2012). He was awarded the Trudeau Fellows Prize in 2004, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005. Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009, he was a finalist for the 2011 Man Booker International Prize, and winner of the 2012 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In translation, his work has been published in more than thirty languages.