Radhika Jha’s most impressive novel to date. Her prose is exquisite: ‘Perhaps no Indian since Ruskin Bond has used the English language so beautifully’ The Statesman. LANTERNS ON THEIR HORNS is being heralded in India as the first great rural Indian novel in decades.

The vividly drawn cast of characters, the intimate social intercourse described with playful humour, the underlying seriousness of the themes – the juggling of the old and the new, the whole process of modernisation – gives echoes of Naguib mahfouz and a connection to the literary tradition of Dickens. Radhika Jha is the kind of novelist who can deliver on several different levels at once, while always maintaining the lightest of touches.

Material : Bound proofs

From Shibu Mondal, the physically challenged beggar with a dark past, to Sushila, the child-wife who weaves colourful dreams from a pile of garbage and hopes for a bright future unlike hers for her yet to be conceived child, the author takes the reader through a maze of emotions. A freak episode involving an elephant and a Maruti car affects someone totally unrelated. The slow build-up to communal violence where living, thinking people become nameless, mindless mobs; the story of the young girl fascinated by the idea of beauty provides a heady concoction with glimpses into many worlds. The author uses language brilliantly, keeping it simple and to the point. The narrative is taut and crisp, but there is always an undercurrent of passion in her stories - a passion for life, for the city of Delhi, and for the common man who rises above all odds and comes up trumps.

This collection enhances Radhika Jha's reputation as a writer of sensory and philosophical power.