Western Lane

Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father puts her on a new training regimen. He seems innocent at first, but turns out to be unusually tough, even brutal. Gopi begins to distance herself from her two sisters, her life and her entire world gradually shrinks to sport and she begins to follow its rhythm: serve, volley, line. But she is not alone on the court. Besides her, there is also her father and an exceptionally talented thirteen-year-old boy, Ged. In addition, everything is supervised by a strict aunt and uncle, who have their own ideas about the proper upbringing of girls.

 An unforgettable novel about coming of age, grief, and friendship, it captures ordinary life with a fresh beauty. Chetna Maroo tells a deeply moving story in a very simple and readable way, without slipping into sentimentality, and shows the innocence and strange ways in which we come to know ourselves and each other. Her book has been shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize.

British-Indian author Chetna Maroo was born in Kenya, Africa, and currently lives in London. In 2022, she received the Plimpton Prize for Fiction for her texts published in the literary magazine Paris Review. Originally working as an accountant, she became a full-time writer after the huge success of her first novel, Western Lane, which was nominated for the Booker Prize.