Half a Life

A powerful and compelling work of fiction from one of the world's greatest living writers Willy Chandran's father was a man at odds with the world - seeking greatness in the confining world that his class and caste dictated while political conflict in pre-Partition India rages around him. As a way of defying his heritage he decides to marry a woman of a lower caste but soon comes to loathe the very sight of her. From this unhappy union, Willy and his sister are born, both disdained by their father. It is from here that Half A Life takes off as we follow Willy Chandran's journey to escape his unhappy past and discover some kind of identity for himself. He travels to London where he is first exposed to the life of the immigrant in post war London - hanging around in dingy West End clubs and attempting fruitless sexual gratification. Through his writing he is drawn to the world of the BBC and of letters where he meets pompous publishers and men eager for sexual conquest. But residing deep within him is a sense of unease until he meets a girl from a Portuguese African colony and at last it seems he has found salvation.