Author: Shashi Deshpande
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2008
Language: English
Pages: 259
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780670081981
Description
In the Country of Deceit is a subtle, many-layered exploration of the consequences of betrayal on people’s lives and relationships.
Devayani chooses to live alone in the small town of Rajnur after her parents’ death, ignoring the gently voiced disapproval of her family and friends. Teaching English, creating a garden and making friends with Rani, a former actress who settles in the town with her husband and three children, Devayani’s life is tranquil, imbued with a hard-won independence. Then she meets Ashok Chinappa, Rajnur’s new District Superintendent of Police, and they fall in love despite the fact that Ashok is much older, married, and—as both painfully acknowledge from the very beginning—it is a relationship without a future.
Deshpande’s unflinching gaze tracks the suffering, evasions and lies that overtake those caught in the web of subterfuge. There are no hostages taken in the country of deceit; no victors; only scarred lives. This understated yet compassionate examination of the nature of love, loyalty and deception establishes yet again Deshpande’s position as one of India’s most formidable writers of fiction.
COMMENTS
‘One of our finest writers of English. Her style is elegant, substantial, full of the surprises of exactitude.
-Lakshmi Holmstrom
Contents
Ground Zero
Epiphany
The Country of Deceit
Unspooling
Acknowledgements