Book News: Quarterlife by Devika Rege

An astute debut novel follows the personal and political upheaval of three friends in a thinly fictionalised contemporary Mumbai

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is never identified by name in Devika Rege’s auspicious debut, “Quarterlife,” but his ascension to power is the catalyst for this scintillating novel of ideas and personal transformations…

In “Quarterlife,” Devika Rege uses three very different protagonists to explore the country’s ideological ferment—setting them first at play, then at war.

In her debut novel Quarterlife Devika Rege skilfully lays out the inner world of her characters, and the contradictions that shape them. It’s 2014 when the story opens, and the Bharat party candidate, a Hindu nationalist with endless promises and a divisive campaign, has won the election. “Tweet aft…

Rege has just been awarded the Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman for Best Fiction by The New Indian Express for her remarkable achievement on a book that has impressed readers with its depth and maturity and pushes the limits of what the form can achieve.

Rege has a vast descriptive repertoire, is willing to take astonishing risks with structure, and is immaculate in her numerous interiority dives

As I understand it, the novelist’s task is to make meaning of the ideas of an epoch through a textual form that is uniquely spacious and versatile. To think of fiction as anything less is to underestimate its potential.

DEVIKA REGE’S DEBUT novel Quarterlife begins with a successful and very competitive NRI, Naren Agashe, finally getting a green card. Instead of rejoicing and looking forward to an even more illustrious career in the US, Naren decides to go back home to Mumbai, India. India, where a newly elected gov…

If politics really is about the stories we tell ourselves, how frightening, it ventures, is the fate of those that may not survive?

Quarterlife is that rare novel that dares to speak differently. The zeitgeist it depicts is one of anger and uncertainty but it’s also about hope, ambition, and an impulse to emerge on the right side of history.

In their different ways, two recent novels about living in urban India, ‘Quarterlife’ and ‘History’s Angel’, urge us to recognise, in the denuded, impoverished mental worlds we inhabit today, the rich messiness of our past, and to see value in it instead of shame and disgrace.

We are thrilled to announce that our author @ds.rege has won the Mathrubhumi Book Of The Year Award, 2023 for her debut, Quarterlife, at the prestigious Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters presented by @mbifl.