The Far Field – Madhuri Vijay

A search for answers becomes a reckoning with grief, privilege and the consequences of good intentions.

After her mother’s death, Shalini leaves Bangalore for a remote village in Kashmir, determined to find Bashir Ahmed, the travelling salesman whose visits marked her childhood. She believes his disappearance holds a clue to her mother’s life, but the journey draws her into a family’s tangled history and a region shaped by political conflict.

As tensions rise, Shalini’s desire to understand the past forces her into choices that could endanger the people who have welcomed her. Intimate family secrets meet a much wider story of belonging, guilt and the limits of compassion.

Described by Ben Fountain as “equal parts love story, war story, and family intrigue,” this is a compelling choice for readers who enjoy morally complex characters and richly layered literary fiction. If you liked The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy or The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, you’ll like this.

A trade paperback in Very Good condition: minor shelf wear, clean and intact pages, and a tight binding.