A Fine Balance

Rohinton Mistry · b. 1952 · India / Canada

Why it matters

Four strangers (a widow, a student, and two tailors fleeing caste violence) are thrown together in one Bombay apartment during Indira Gandhi's Emergency. Friendship as the last defense against a merciless, arbitrary state.

At a glance

Accessible realist prose, though its unrelenting accumulation of tragedy is emotionally demanding.