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A Fine Balance

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About this listen

With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers - a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village - will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.

As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.

©1995 Rohinton Mistry (P)2018 Audible, Inc. Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction South Asian Creators Emotionally Gripping Heartfelt Inspiring Tear-jerking Thought-Provoking Friendship
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I am astounded by the level and quality of this narration! A story that unwinds as it reels you in. I felt that I walked with the characters, understood them and experienced their lives intimately. The story is simple but the levels of complexity embedded in human societal structures and consequent behaviour left me exhilarated and at times hollowed out. If this book speaks to your sense of humanity, follow it up with the film, Article 15. I highly recommend this book!

The Least of These.

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I noticed this book in the 100 books to read before you die. It's beautifully written - at times heart-warming, at times horrifying. It stays with you a long time after you've read it. The narrator Vikas Adam is the best I've heard on Audible so far.

Fantastic book with brilliant narration

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The narration performance is fantastic, to compliment such a brilliant book.
I mentioned to my mother I was reading it and she replied that it was her favourite book ever, and had read it 3 times.
My wife also found it a tremendously powerful book but too sad to read again.
Although it is a tough subject it written with such tenderness and observance that there is a warmth in every page.
To read it- well listen to it - is to live with the characters as they journey through life.
Awesome it will be with me forever.

A most incredible book, to stay with you all your life

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Loved the story, so depressing and yet so fantastic and rich. Enjoyed the narration but felt it lacked the punch this doing a bit of disservice to the otherwise brilliant book.

Brilliant story though storytelling could be better

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Speechless.....what a story...characters superbly written, so engaging, heartbreaking, funny, the whole gamut of emotions.

An incredible listen

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