The Association of Small Bombs - Couverture souple

"Wonderful. It is smart, unpredictable and enviably adept in its handling of tragedy and its fallout" (New York Times)

"A superb novel... Mahajan inhabits two sides of a divided India" (Financial Times)

"Extraordinary... A mind-blowing book on many, many levels" (BBC Radio 4)

"A voracious approach to fiction-making, a daring imaginative promiscuity" (New Yorker)

"In Mahajan's riveting, intricate story, the aftershocks of small bombs are as inescapable as their explosions" (Alex Traub Vice Magazine)

"Engrossing... looks at the after-effects of tragedy from the perspective of the victims, survivors and perpetrators" (Sarah Gilmartin Irish Times)

"Wonderful... smart, devastating, unpredictable and enviably adept in its handling of tragedy and its fallout. If you enjoy novels that happily disrupt traditional narratives – about grief, death, violence, politics – I suggest you go out and buy this one. Post haste... thrilling, tender and tragic... generous without prejudice, which feels at once subversive and refreshing" (Fiona Maazel The New York Times Book Review)

"An utterly brilliant book. Rarely does one encounter a work as masterful in the precision of its writing or as penetrating in the insights it provides. Karan Mahajan is a writer to be admired." (Kevin Powers)

"Karan Mahajan’s thoughtful, touching and perfectly pitched account of two marketplace bombings and the casual havoc they cause in a handful of Delhi families is almost subversive in its even-handedness and its charity. For all its unflinching - and unnerving - fatalism, The Association of Small Bombs is an unusually wise, tender, and generous novel." (Jim Crace)

"A voracious approach to fiction-making, a daring imaginative promiscuity... he renders the spectacle of the bombing with a languid, balletic beauty, pitting the unhurried composure of his prose against the violence of the events it describes... Mahajan hasn’t lost his sharp comic impulses... [Mahajan's] facility for gorgeous turns of phrase produces many passages of vivid, startling power" (Alexandra Schwartz The New Yorker)

One of the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2016
A New York Times Notable Book of 2016

On a hot May day in 1996 a car bomb detonates in a Delhi marketplace. Just a ‘small’ bomb, but it is fatal for two Khurana school boys. Their friend Mansoor survives the blast bearing the physical and psychological effects of the bomb.

After a failed stint at university in America, Mansoor returns to Delhi, where he becomes entangled with the mysterious and charismatic Ayub, a fearless young activist. Yet Mansoor isn't the only one damaged by the bomb. Mr and Mrs Khurana are trapped in labyrinthine legal battles, desperate for justice to appease their grief. Young bomb maker Shockie, striving for the future independence of his Kashmiri homeland, is also in Delhi that day, and afterwards will be inextricably linked to the blast.

Humane and clear-eyed in equal measure, The Association of Small Bombs tackles the most urgent issue of today with astonishing empathy. Karan Mahajan writes about the effects of terrorism on victims and perpetrators alike, proving himself to be one of the most provocative and dynamic novelists of his generation.