AKHIL SHARMA was born in Delhi, India, in 1971. He grew up in Edison, New Jersey.
His stories have appeared in the Best American Short Stories anthology, the O. Henry Award Winners anthology, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker. He is a winner of The Voice Literary Supplement’s Year 2000 "Writers on the Verge" Award. A portion of An Obedient Father was excerpted in the debut fiction issue of The New Yorker in June 2000.
Sharma lives in New York City, where he is an investment banker at a major Wall Street firm.
Recent reviews...
"Sharma’s sharply realistic fiction effortlessly interweaves one man’s life, one family’s history, and one country’s fate into a compelling debut novel … Sharma allows his fiction to unfold through wonderfully rich details. From Karan’s cajoling of bribes from a school principal to his memories of his childhood in Beri to the minutiae of his sad domestic life with his daughter, the facts of this novel fascinate the reader. Combine this with Karan’s greedy, comic, petty, and ultimately horrifying voice, and the result is a tale that haunts us long after we’ve finished it. A remarkable first novel."
—Booklist, starred review
"A supernova in the galaxy of young, talented Indian writers, Sharma debuts with a bold and shocking novel that casts a mesmerizing spell. Ram Karan is a widower whose widowed daughter, Anita, and eight-year-old granddaughter, Asha, live with him in a tiny apartment in one of Delhi’s poorer sections. Nominally a functionary in the physical education department of the city’s schools, Ram is in fact ‘Mr. Gupta’s moneyman’; that is, he coerces bribes for his boss, who funnels the money to the Congress Party.
At first, Ram’s candid admissions of ‘general incompetence and laziness’ are perversely endearing, but when the real cause of his self-hatred comes to light, the reader’s perceptions begin to change. In a moment of temptation, Ram commits a furtive sexual act with his unwitting granddaughter – and his downfall begins. Twenty years ago, he had repeatedly raped Anita, who now becomes unhinged at the thought that her daughter may be in peril. Anita’s bizarre revenge will result in Ram’s complete degradation; ironically, the repercussions of her obsessive need for disclosure cause even more emotional damage to everyone involved. Concurrent with these personal tragedies and the breakdown of one family, Sharma draws an acid-etched picture of modern Indian society, in which the corrupt political system victimizes all citizens … Sharma’s depiction of a society riddled with graft, violent religious prejudice, male chauvinism and bigoted cultural attitudes is a cautionary tale about what happens to the individual spirit when poverty, superstition, racial tension and general hopelessness are exacerbated by the absence of judicial morality. This caustic yet darkly comic story resonates powerfully, as the reader comes to sympathize with fallible human beings trapped in circumstances that corrupt the soul."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
His stories have appeared in the Best American Short Stories anthology, the O. Henry Award Winners anthology, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker. He is a winner of The Voice Literary Supplement’s Year 2000 "Writers on the Verge" Award. A portion of An Obedient Father was excerpted in the debut fiction issue of The New Yorker in June 2000.
Sharma lives in New York City, where he is an investment banker at a major Wall Street firm.
Recent reviews...
"Sharma’s sharply realistic fiction effortlessly interweaves one man’s life, one family’s history, and one country’s fate into a compelling debut novel … Sharma allows his fiction to unfold through wonderfully rich details. From Karan’s cajoling of bribes from a school principal to his memories of his childhood in Beri to the minutiae of his sad domestic life with his daughter, the facts of this novel fascinate the reader. Combine this with Karan’s greedy, comic, petty, and ultimately horrifying voice, and the result is a tale that haunts us long after we’ve finished it. A remarkable first novel."
—Booklist, starred review
"A supernova in the galaxy of young, talented Indian writers, Sharma debuts with a bold and shocking novel that casts a mesmerizing spell. Ram Karan is a widower whose widowed daughter, Anita, and eight-year-old granddaughter, Asha, live with him in a tiny apartment in one of Delhi’s poorer sections. Nominally a functionary in the physical education department of the city’s schools, Ram is in fact ‘Mr. Gupta’s moneyman’; that is, he coerces bribes for his boss, who funnels the money to the Congress Party.
At first, Ram’s candid admissions of ‘general incompetence and laziness’ are perversely endearing, but when the real cause of his self-hatred comes to light, the reader’s perceptions begin to change. In a moment of temptation, Ram commits a furtive sexual act with his unwitting granddaughter – and his downfall begins. Twenty years ago, he had repeatedly raped Anita, who now becomes unhinged at the thought that her daughter may be in peril. Anita’s bizarre revenge will result in Ram’s complete degradation; ironically, the repercussions of her obsessive need for disclosure cause even more emotional damage to everyone involved. Concurrent with these personal tragedies and the breakdown of one family, Sharma draws an acid-etched picture of modern Indian society, in which the corrupt political system victimizes all citizens … Sharma’s depiction of a society riddled with graft, violent religious prejudice, male chauvinism and bigoted cultural attitudes is a cautionary tale about what happens to the individual spirit when poverty, superstition, racial tension and general hopelessness are exacerbated by the absence of judicial morality. This caustic yet darkly comic story resonates powerfully, as the reader comes to sympathize with fallible human beings trapped in circumstances that corrupt the soul."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
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