RADHIKA JHA

NEW NOVEL (work in progress)
Manoj Mishra gives up his PhD and comes to Bombay to meet a suitable girl. He arrives ten days after his appointment, wild eyed and talking about poverty alleviation through buying European cows and setting up a dairy to give free milk to starving children in villages. The prospective parents-in-law think he is mad, but their daughter, Pratima, falls madly in love with this raging idealist. In Nandpur, a village which has consciously decided to turn it's back on modernity, Ramu the village idiot and charity case sneaks off and marries a beautiful educated girl, Laxmi. A few weeks later he finds an abandoned cow in the forest and adopts it. The two unlikely couples meet when Manoj inseminates Ramu's no-good cow with European bull sperm and they all rush headlong towards a confrontation in which what is at stake is not a cow or a human, but the identity of Nandpur, and of India itself.
Delivery end June 2007.

THE ELEPHANT AND THE MARUTI

'...perhaps no Indian since Ruskin Bond, has used the English language so beautifully.' The Statesman

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.

Material: Finished copies (243 pages).

Sales: Penguin India; Arena Holland; Neri Pozza Italy; Editions Philippe Picquier France; Dom Quixote Portugal; Defne Yayinevi Turkey.

SMELL

WINNER OF THE PRIX GUERLAIN 'A novel to rival Patrick Suskind's Perfume... An outstanding novel.' Punch 'Her writing is generous, unbridled, sensual. In her company, one begins to rediscover Paris, its beauty, its mirages, its traps, with a roving eye, that of the 'other', the outsider who would love a moment's respite from the smells of exile.' Le Figaro Number One bestseller in India and a debut novel that charts new territory in contemporary Indian fiction.

After the death of her father Leela’s family is forced to leave Kenya. Leela ends up with her childless aunt and uncle in a claustrophobic Parisian high-rise banlieu flat. This cheerless protection is short-lived and Leela finds herself alone on the streets of an alien city. She struggles to survive, from one job to another, one destructive relationship to another and discovers an unusual quality in herself –her extraordinary sensitivity to smell. A seemingly innocuous and occasionally useful attribute, it gradually begins to colour her every emotion and response, from sexual arousal to the enjoyment of food. But when the dark feral stench of her own body threatens to overpower her, Leela is frightened into the realisation that perhaps she has lost all control over her life (307 pages).

'Two things drive SMELL with an urgency that few Indian novels in English have been able to lay claim to – Leela’s unusual sense of herself and the world around her, and the passion with which Jha has invested her story… Jha dexterously blends a witty dissection of Parisian society, French politics and expatriate angst with one woman’s search for herself... Last year, the newspapers were heralding the advent of a great talent in the person of Raj Kamal Jha. They got the talent and the surname right – it’s just the minor details that were a bit off.' Asian Age

'It is one of the most interesting books I have read in a long, long time.' The Statesman

'This amazing first novel with philosophical titbits strewn about like those coins in Christmas pudding could have been an Indian take on Orwell’s DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON.' India Today

Material: Finished copies

Sales: Penguin India (original publisher); Philippe Picquier France; Neri Pozza Italy; Arena Holland; Soho Press USA; Quartet UK; Blanvalet/Bertelsmann Germany; Natur och Kultur Sweden; Dom Quixote Portugal; Diigisi Greece; Fuso Japan; Hed Arzi Israel; Ediciones el Cobre Spanish; Alfa Narodna Knjiga Serbia; Leaders Korea; Defne Yayinevi Turkey; Editura Leda Romania.

RADHIKA JHA lived in Paris as an exchange student. She now lives in Delhi, where she has worked as assistant cultural attache at the French embassy, and is now writing her new novel and performing Odissi dancing (in India and around the world). She has worked for Hindustan Times and BusinessWorld writing on culture, employment, the environment and the economy. She has also worked for the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, where she started up the Interact project for the education of the children of the victims of terrorism in different parts of India.