Full name: English, August: An Indian Story

Author: Upamanyu Chatterjee Year: 1988 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Fiction Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9781590171790 1590171799

Agastya Sen, known to friends by the English name August, is a child of the Indian elite. His friends go to Yale and Harvard. August himself has just landed a prize government job. The job takes him to Madna, "the hottest town in India," deep in the sticks. There he finds himself surrounded by incompetents and cranks, time wasters, bureaucrats, and crazies. What to do? Get stoned, shirk work, collapse in the heat, stare at the ceiling. Dealing with the locals turns out to be a lot easier for August than living with himself. English, August is a comic masterpiece from contemporary India. Like A Confederacy of Dunces and The Catcher in the Rye, it is both an inspired and hilarious satire and a timeless story of self-discovery. Similar books: Weight Loss by Upamanyu Chatterjee The Hero's Walk by Anita Rau Badami Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee The Pleasure Seekers by Tishani Doshi Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai The Sari Shop by Rupa Bajwa A River Sutra by Gita Mehta The Age of Shiva by Manil Suri Sleeping on Jupiter by Anuradha Roy The Folded Earth by Anuradha Roy Red Earth and Pouring Rain by Vikram Chandra The Vine of Desire by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni The Golden Son by Shilpi Somaya Gowda The House of Blue Mangoes by David Davidar Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai Take Me With You by Catherine Ryan Hyde Empire Falls by Richard Russo Anne of Windy Poplars by Lucy Maud Montgomery The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes