The Way Things Were (Paperback)

Intensely engrossing . . . What [Taseer] has done with great intelligence and elegance is to deliver a novel of ideas in the guise of a very human story. - Michael Prodger, Financial Times

A formidable mix of the personal and the political . . . Taseer's wide and analytical perspective has something in common with contemporaries Amit Chaudhuri and Neel Mukherjee, but his style - at once highly intellectual and deeply poetic - is unique . . . The Way Things Were is a substantive contribution to new writing from the subcontinent. - Amanda Hopkinson, Independent

The Ways Things Were shows [Taseer] to be both an accomplished novelist and commentator. In delving beneath the surface, he has vividly exposed the quarrels and quandaries of an India undergoing rapid historical and social change. - Will Nicoll, Spectator

An ambitious state-of-the-nation novel about the role of history in a contested present . . . Taseer . . . sensitively undercuts the seductions of nostalgia. - Phil Baker, Sunday Times

This is the sort of novel that gathers intelligence and power through repetition, incantation, and time. As the pages build . . . these characters grow into two of the most memorable creations in Indian fiction. These scenes have an aching power that Taseer amplifies with his exquisite, booming prose . . . as if Taseer has taken Naipaul and titrated him with Proust . . . He has written the best Indian novel of the last decade. - Karan Mahajan, Los Angeles Review of Books