Leila - Softcover

Akbar, Prayaag

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571341322 ISBN 13: 9780571341320

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2019

Synopsis

Netflix series coming in June 2019
Perfect for fans of The Handmaid's Tale

Shalini will never forget her daughter Leila’s third birthday party: it was the last time she saw her alive.

Sixteen years have passed and Shalini’s life is unrecognizable. Her husband gone: beaten and dragged from their home the night Leila disappeared. Shalini, once privileged, is now disgraced. She trawls the streets desperate to discover where Leila now lives – if she lives at all.

In this repressive state, where tradition and purity are valued above all, those outside the city walls – forced to live in filth and oppressive heat – are less than nothing. But can Shalini find a way back in? Will she see Leila again?

About this title

About the Author:

Prayaag Akbar was born in Calcutta in 1982. He studied economics at Dartmouth College and comparative politics at the London School of Economics, and spent a year at Routledge, UK as a publicity assistant. He has been an editor at scroll.in and the Sunday Guardian and a reporter with Outlook magazine. His award-winning reports and commentary have examined various aspects of marginalization in India. His work has appeared in Caravan, The Cricket Monthly, Mint, Indian Express and India Today, among others. He lives in Bombay with his wife and their cat and tweets under @unessentialist.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

The things Leila and I will do together when I find her:
1. Oil and comb her hair. She will have long, difficult frizzes, like me. I want to rub oil into her scalp. Bunch strands in my palm. Stroke unguent deep into each one.
2. Factory Dhaba, in the East Slum. Women can have a beer here without too much trouble. I hardly drink now but I must hear everything. What music she likes. Colours, whom she’s loved, how she spent these years. She will be facing a stranger. I must be ready for that.
3. Travel to the East End. They won’t let us enter, of course. But she must see where she was born.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 0571341322
• ISBN 13: 9780571341320
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272