Description
In a Delhi charged with literary ambition and cultural longing, Deven—an earnest teacher with a deep fascination for Urdu—seizes an opportunity to meet the celebrated poet Nur. Hoping to capture Nur’s voice and preserve his early work, Deven sets out with a secondhand tape recorder, only to find that the poet’s world is shaped as much by hardship and disillusionment as by art. As Deven’s plans shift from reverence to frustration and back again, the novel explores what it means to “possess” a story, translate a voice, and chase authenticity across class, language, and expectation. With Anita Desai’s lyrical, psychologically acute style, the book becomes a meditation on devotion, power, and the fragile distance between scholarship and lived reality.
Available Editions
paperback
Vintage
Published Jan 1, 1999
242 pages
ISBN: 9780099428497
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Details
First Published
1984
Language
eng
Content Warnings
Content and trigger warnings for In Custody by Anita Desai.