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Published Jan 2017
304 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
From Aravind Adiga, the bestselling, Booker Prize–winning author of The White Tiger, a dazzling new novel about two brothers in a Mumbai slum who are raised by their obsessive father to become cricket stars, and whose coming of age threatens their relationship, future, and sense of themselves.
Manjunath Kumar is fourteen and living in a slum in Mumbai. He knows he is good at cricket - if not as good as his older brother, Radha. He knows that he fears and resents his domineering and cricket-obsessed father, admires his brilliantly talented sibling, and is fascinated by curious scientific facts and the world of CSI. But there are many things, about himself and about the world, that he doesn't know. Sometimes it even seems as though everyone has a clear idea of who Manju should be, except Manju himself. When Manju meets Radha's great rival, a mysterious Muslim boy privileged and confident in all the ways Manju is not, everything in Manju's world begins to change, and he is faced by decisions that will challenge his understanding of it, as well as his own self.
Filled with unforgettable characters from across India's social strata - the old scout everyone calls Tommy Sir; Anand Mehta, the big-dreaming investor; Sofia, a wealthy, beautiful girl and the boys' biggest fan - this book combines the best of The Art of Fielding and Slumdog Millionaire for a compulsive, moving story of adolescence and ambition, fathers, sons, and brothers. Selection Day is Adiga's most absorbing, big-hearted novel to date, and proves why "with his gripping, amusing glimpse into the contradictions and perils of modern India, Aravind Adiga has cemented his reputation as the preeminent chronicler of his country's messy present" (Newsweek).
"Starred Review. Peppered with dashes of humor, this dark and unflinching story is an unqualified triumph." - Booklist
"Starred Review. With his brilliant, raw energy ricocheting off of every line, Booker winner Adiga (White Tiger) turns his wry wit and his scrutiny to the youth leagues of cricket in Mumbai, following the successes and failures of teenage brothers Radha Krishna and Manjunath Kumar, who have been both formed and broken by their visionary but abusive father, Mohan." - Publishers Weekly
"Incisive and often wickedly funny as social commentary, though many characters are more like caricatures and the finale doesn't resolve much." - Kirkus
"Selection Day is, by any judgment, top-rate fiction from a young master... Adiga's plot is gripping." - The Times (UK)
"A compelling tale of cricket and corruption... A finely told, often moving, and intelligent novel... Adiga has grown in his art since his Booker prizewinning debut, The White Tiger." - The Guardian (UK)
"An engrossing and nuanced coming-of-age novel... Adiga has succeeded in composing a powerful individual story that, at the same time, does justice to life's (and India's) great indeterminacies." - The Sunday Times (UK)
"Sensually told and unpredictably plotted... Adiga's prose has a bustling energy that makes it highly readable." - The Financial Times (UK)
"A captivating and sensitive coming-of-age story... Adiga's characters, like his settings, are getting more complex with each book, and this complexity makes his indictment of the contemporary world all the more urgent and convincing." - Times Literary Supplement (UK)
This information about Selection Day was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Aravind Adiga is the author of The White Tiger, which was awarded the 2008 Man Booker Prize, Last Man in Tower, and a collection of stories, Between the Assassinations. He was born in India and attended Columbia and Oxford universities. He is a former correspondent for Time magazine whose work has also appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, the Sunday Times (London), and the Financial Times, among other publications. He lives in India.
Author Interview
Link to Aravind Adiga's Website
Name Pronunciation
Aravind Adiga: arh-vindh adi-ja
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