The Village by the Sea

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An award-winning story about a family’s survival in a small fishing village in India

With their mother ill and their father permanently drunk, Hari and Lila have to earn the money to keep house and look after their two young sisters. In desperation, Hari runs away to Bombay, and Lila is left to cope alone.

Untouched by the twentieth century, Thul, the small fishing village near Bombay, is still ruled by the age-old seasonal rhythms. Hari and Lila have lived in the village all their lives, but their family is now desperately down on its luck. Their father drinks; their mother is seriously ill; and there is no money to keep them fed and clothed. Delicately and exquisitely executed, Anita Desai s gentle and probing story traces the evolution of Hari and Lila into adults as each of them faces the family’s predicament – just as the first signs of industrial India creep into their village.

A Classic of Our Time.