Half Gods

Akil Kumarasamy

In this debut collection of ten interlinked stories, the writer Akil Kumarasamy follows the fractured origins and destinies of members of a multigenerational Sri Lankan Tamil family. After an act of violence, a baby girl is renamed after a Hindu goddess but raised as a Muslim; a lonely butcher from Angola finds solace in a family of refugees in New Jersey; a gentle entomologist in Sri Lanka discovers unexpected reserves of courage while searching for his missing son.

HarperCollins, 216 pages, Rs 499