An Outline of the Republic: A Novel - Hardcover

Deb, Siddhartha

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060501553 ISBN 13: 9780060501556

Publisher: Ecco, 2005

Synopsis

"They gave me the vaguest of assignments before packing me off to the region, introducing the subject late one night in the company urinals." So begins the story of Amrit, a young, disillusioned journalist at a Calcutta daily, a Sikh, who finds a disturbing photograph of a woman and decides to investigate the story of her life and the violent incident captured by the photograph. His research takes him halfway across India, to a region of seven hill states bordered by China and Burma, where drugs, guns, and timber sustain the crumbling economy and where militancy and insurgent movements brew, threatening to spill over into a larger conflict. Amrit's journey is as uncertain as the woman he wishes to find, interrupted by odd mishaps, intrusive strangers with disturbing stories, false leads, and, above all, disquieting rumors about a man running something called the Prosperity Project -- a man who may have the answers to all Amrit's questions.

A dramatic and tense narrative that sheds new light on India at moral, political, and social crossroads, An Outline of the Republic is a suspenseful, epic novel that traces the boundaries between illusion and reality, and the lives of people caught in the middle.

About this title

About the Author:

Siddhartha Deb was born in northeastern India in 1970. His first novel, The Point of Return, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His reviews and journalism have appeared in the Boston Globe, the Guardian, The Nation, the New Statesman, and the Times Literary Supplement. He came to New York on a literary fellowship in 1998, and now divides his time between India and New York.

From Publishers Weekly:

The pursuit of a mysterious story transforms an Indian reporter in Deb's ambitious second novel (after The Point of Return), vividly capturing the unrest and political infighting that underlies daily life in much of India. Amrit Singh is the bored, disillusioned Sikh protagonist who grinds through his days working for a Calcutta daily until he is jolted from his ennui by an assignment to cover the murder of a woman taken hostage and apparently shot and killed by an insurgent group. A photo of the woman haunts Amrit as he travels toward the Burmese border. At first she is identified as a porn star who was killed to set a moral example, but as Amrit makes his way through a labyrinth of politicos, military figures and shady allies, he learns that the woman, named Leela, was working with a prominent local leader on an optimistic renewal enterprise called the Prosperity Project. The climax is a mixed bag--the fate of Malik, the organizer of the Prosperity Project, who was temporarily able to do business with the insurgents, makes for an intriguing twist--but the final chapters outlining Amrit's efforts to interview Leela are a serious letdown. Still, Deb's intelligent writing and cool, observational tone distinguish this look at the curious mixture of danger, hope and boredom endemic to India's remote provinces.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060501553
• ISBN 13: 9780060501556
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320