"An Obedient Father" by Akhil Sharma; published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, stated First Edition, 2000.

"A powerful debut novel that establishes Sharma as a supreme storyteller." [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Original dust jacket with un-clipped price on the front flap; velum hard boards with gold lettering on spine; 5.3/4" x 8.3/4"; 282 pages; very good/ fine condition.

"An Obedient Father" by Akhil Sharma received the 2001 Hemingway Foundation/ PEN Award and Whiting Writers' Award. Set during the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the story is about a corrupt man who lives with his daughter and granddaughter in a New Delhi slum.

Ram Karan, a corrupt official in New Delhi, lives with his widowed daughter and his little granddaughter. Bumbling, sad, ironic, Ram is also a man corroded by a terrible secret. Taking the reader down into a world of feuding families and politics, "An Obedient Father" is a work of rare sensibilities that presents a character as formulated, funny, and morally ambiguous as any of Dostoevsky's antiheroes." [from a review]

Sharma described creating his main character as "looking for someone who was guilty appropriately... There's that Henry James quote that 'it doesn't matter if a character is good or bad, it matters if the character is interesting.' So that's how I began to figure how to write about someone like [this]" (Sharma).

US: Priority (c.2-8 days) ------------ $12.50
Canada: 1st Class (c.2-6 weeks) ---- $27.50
World: 1st Class (c.2-8 weeks) ----- $35.50