The Enclave

by Rohit Manchanda

English 348 pages 1 edition

‘A sharp, and often hilarious, portrait of womanhood in post-liberalization India’ – AMRITA MAHALE ‘Full of wonders … cunningly observant, rapturous, profoundly wise, and often funny’ – AMIT CHAUDHURI ‘Exquisitely transparent prose and finely tuned dialogue’ – ARUNAVA SINHA ‘Addictive’ – SUMANA ROY Freewheeling, in her early forties, lately divorced, Maya is happy in her job, happy with her crop of friends and lovers, and is enjoying a halcyon spell in Bombay, the city she loves and has made her home. The Enclave traces the run of Maya’s days as she goes about her work as a liaison officer, her trysts with her amours, her spirited engagement with the world at large, and her writerly ambitions – each of which comes with its joys and vexations. But then, things start to unravel. And Maya finds herself at an unsettling crossroads, where she must grapple with anger, grief and the precariousness of things hitherto taken for granted. Set in the late 2000s, Rohit Manchanda’s new novel is a finely observed, brilliantly wrought, tender yet humorous evocation of a time when the country’s middle classes began savouring the fruits of economic liberalization, a newfound material well-being, and a broadening of social and cultural mores – a time, briefly, when so much seemed possible.