A01=Celina Baljeet Basra
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aravind adiga
Author_Celina Baljeet Basra
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Category=FBA
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Category=VF
Celina baljeet basra
COP=United Kingdom
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great Indian novels
indian novels
Language_English
literary novels
migrant crisis
migration
novels about Europe
novels about food
PA=Not yet available
Price_€10 to €20
prize-winning novels
PS=Forthcoming
sanjeev sahota
softlaunch
the white tiger
Product details
- ISBN 9781035405923
- Weight: 200g
- Dimensions: 130 x 196mm
- Publication Date: 12 Nov 2024
- Publisher: Headline Publishing Group
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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'This novel is genius . . . strange and superb . . . radiant and exhilarating' THE TELEGRAPH
'A magnificent attempt to help us understand the mixture of optimism, self-defense, hope and delusion[needed] to make the monumental choice of whether or not to leave home' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
' A sobering reminder' WASHINGTON POST
'Leaping, chattering, dancing atop this conundrum [of global migration] comes the hero of Celina Baljeet Basra's debut novel, Happy Singh Soni, his head bursting with ideas, his heart set on gargantuan dreams' NEW YORK TIMES
In a small farming village in Punjab, India, a boy crouches over his brother's phone in a rapeseed field watching clips of Godard's Bande à part on YouTube.
His name is Happy Singh Soni and when he's not sleeping among the cabbages and eating sugary rotis, Happy dreams of becoming an actor, one who plays the melancholy roles; the sad, pretty boys, rare in Indian cinema. He plans a clandestine journey to Europe, where he'll finally land a breakout role.
After a nightmarish passage to Italy, Happy still manages to find relief in food and fantasy, even as he is forced into ever-worsening work conditions on a radish farm by the syndicate involved in smuggling him to Europe to pay off the supposed debt they claim he has accrued. While disillusionment amongst the farm workers rise, Happy will find the love - and tragedy - that his favourite films always promised.
At turns funny and heart-breaking, sunny and tragic, Happy is a formally ambitious novel about the psychic fissures produced by the splintering of nations, and the lovely, generative, artful coping mechanisms created by generations of diasporic people. With this ingenious, daringly cinematic debut, Celina Baljeet Basra argues for the things that are basic to human survival: food, water, shelter, but also pleasure, romance, art, and the right to a vivid inner life.
More praise for HAPPY:
'A MIRACULOUS NOVEL' MEGHA MAJUMDAR
'PLAYFUL AND PROFOUND . . . USING WRY HUMOUR TO DELIVER A DEAD SERIOUS MESSAGE' MELISSA FU
'A BONKERS STORY THAT READS LIKE A FINE TEN-COURSE MEAL' GARY SHTEYNGART
'A FANTASTIC LITTLE GEM OF A BOOK' CHIKODILI EMELUMADU
CELINA BALJEET BASRA is a writer and cultural worker based in Berlin. She is a founder of the Department of Love, a curatorial collective. Happy is her first novel.
