The Blue Bedspread

First edition. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 228. Violet cloth boards, lettered in silver to spine; indigo blue endpapers. Jacket photograph by Peter Beavis.

Winner of the 2000 Commonwealth Writers' Award for Best First Book (Eurasia region). Shortlisted for the 2000 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the 1999 Guardian First Book Award. A 2000 New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Author's critically acclaimed literary debut, a novel set in Calcutta dealing with a family legacy of incest, violence, and alcoholism, and written in an immediate, personal style.

John Fowles described it as the "coming of age of the Indian novel," while Alfred Hickling in The Guardian opined that "perhaps the biggest taboo that Jha seeks to breach is the sacrosanct, hierarchical structure of the family." Raised in the West Bengal capital, Jha currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of The Indian Express, an English-language daily newspaper published in Mumbai. "A powerful, haunting and sometimes shocking novel that deserves to be read at one sitting and then re-read." –Irish Times