The Association of Small Bombs - Karan Mahajan
Mansoor, covered in blood, is walking home through the markets of Delhi, as passers-by gossip about the bombing that just occurred while oblivious to one of its victims right in their midst. This is one from a series of scenes that opens Karan Mahajan’s sophomore effort, The Association of Small Bombs. Mahajan examines the personal and the political –– and the hairline divide between the two –– with tart effectiveness. Without flinching from India’s sundry social divisions and political conflicts, Mahajan also writes a novel that doesn’t drift from a very human-scale viewpoint, and that’s what makes the story’s gradual unraveling so engrossing.