A Day in the Life

• Anjum Hasan brings together a wide range of characters whose lives intersect with questions of belonging, identity, love and change. Set against different Indian locations and social settings, the stories focus on people who often find themselves slightly out of step with the world around them.

  The collection is marked by understated humour, emotional sensitivity and sharp observation. Hasan explores everyday experiences while revealing the deeper anxieties and desires beneath them.

• Anjum Hasan is an Indian writer and poet. She is the author of novels including Lunatic in My Head, Neti, Neti and The Cosmopolitans, as well as the short-story collection Difficult Pleasures and the poetry collection Street on the Hill. Her work has received recognition from major Indian literary awards and has been widely acclaimed for its portrayal of contemporary life.

A Day in the Life brings together fourteen stories that explore the emotional and social worlds of people living in contemporary India. The characters include young couples trying to adapt to marriage, individuals struggling with loneliness and displacement, and people negotiating the changing relationships between social classes.

Rather than relying on dramatic events, Hasan finds significance in everyday encounters and small moments. Her protagonists are often inward-looking, vulnerable and unconventional, searching for their place in a rapidly changing world.

With its subtle humour, thoughtful characterisation and evocative prose, the collection offers an intimate portrait of ordinary lives and the complicated feelings that shape them.