Author: Aravind Jayan
Genres: Literary Fiction
In the sleepy hometown of one of the astronauts, two teens, disillusioned with the state of the world and their own homelives, chase an incendiary rumour they believe has the power to jolt everyone awake: that the astronaut, son of a tyrannical rubber baron, is about to start a political sit-in on the moon against the ills of the country: casteism, religious division, rapidly-growing fascism… ills the astronaut’s father so happens to embody.
Quickly, a night the political upper-class wants to celebrate as India’s greatest threatens to become its most embarrassing.
Jayan’s deadpan prose and ‘truly infectious’ narrative voice (The Guardian) brings to life a tragicomic story about cowardice, naive heroism, privilege, and pointless guilt, while satirising the people of a lost nation anxious to launch ahead yet remain unchanged.
It’s a short, effortless read with thriller-like pacing.
Jayan’s debut ‘Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors’ was critically acclaimed in multiple languages, earning him comparisons to Philip Roth (Radio Germany), Hanif Kureshi (Radio France), and August Strindberg, the father of modern Swedish literature (Dagens Nyheter, Sweden). It was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize in the UK, where the Chair of Judges, Peter Florence, called him ‘a comic genius’.
Author: Aravind Jayan
Genres: Literary Fiction
In the sleepy hometown of one of the astronauts, two teens, disillusioned with the state of the world and their own homelives, chase an incendiary rumour they believe has the power to jolt everyone awake: that the astronaut, son of a tyrannical rubber baron, is about to start a political sit-in on the moon against the ills of the country: casteism, religious division, rapidly-growing fascism… ills the astronaut’s father so happens to embody.
Quickly, a night the political upper-class wants to celebrate as India’s greatest threatens to become its most embarrassing.
Jayan’s deadpan prose and ‘truly infectious’ narrative voice (The Guardian) brings to life a tragicomic story about cowardice, naive heroism, privilege, and pointless guilt, while satirising the people of a lost nation anxious to launch ahead yet remain unchanged.
It’s a short, effortless read with thriller-like pacing.
Jayan’s debut ‘Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors’ was critically acclaimed in multiple languages, earning him comparisons to Philip Roth (Radio Germany), Hanif Kureshi (Radio France), and August Strindberg, the father of modern Swedish literature (Dagens Nyheter, Sweden). It was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize in the UK, where the Chair of Judges, Peter Florence, called him ‘a comic genius’.
