We That Are Young

A stunning debut novel, a modern-day King Lear set in contemporary India--a battle for power, status, and the love of a megalomaniac father.

When twenty-eight-year-old Jivan Singh returns home to New Delhi after fifteen years in the United States, it is only to witness the unexpected resignation of his father's boss, Devraj Bapuji--billionaire hotelier, political operator, and a man known in private for vicious games of divide and rule in which he pits his three daughters against one another. Then Sita, Devraj's youngest--his favorite--refuses to play along, turning her back on marriage and her inheritance. Consumed with hurt and rage, Devraj splits the Company between Sita's sisters, Gargi and Radha, and a brutal struggle for primacy begins. We That Are Young gives us a near-real vision of an India corrupted, where rich men are gods while farmers starve and water is fast running out. Brilliant in its fierce, incandescent storytelling and the poetic energy of its prose, searing in its exploration of human fallibility, Preti Taneja's novel sings with the pace of life in one of the world's fastest-growing economies. It is about the clash of youth and age, the hunger to live and the ever-present specter of death. Above all, it reveals the fragility of the human heart--and its inevitable breaking point.

PRETI TANEJA was born in England to Indian parents. She has worked with youth charities, with refugees, and in conflict and post-conflict zones on minority and cultural rights. She teaches writing in prisons and universities. She is the co-founder of the advocacy collective ERA Films and of Visual Verse, an online anthology of art and words. We That Are Young is her first novel.