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A House for Mr. Biswas

Published
Jan 1961
Main Genre
General Fiction General Fiction
Rating
Pages
589

About This Book

From the Nobel Prize-winning author: an unforgettable comedy of manners inspired by the author's father that has been hailed as one of the twentieth century's finest novels.

"A marvelous prose epic that matches the best nineteenth-century novels for richness of comic insight and final, tragic power." —Newsweek


In his forty-six short years, Mr. Mohun Biswas has been fighting against destiny to achieve some semblance of independence, only to face a lifetime of calamity. Shuttled from one residence to another after the drowning death of his father, for which he is inadvertently responsible, Mr. Biswas yearns for a place he can call home. But when he marries into the domineering Tulsi family on whom he indignantly becomes dependent, Mr. Biswas embarks on an arduous—and endless—struggle to weaken their hold over him and purchase a house of his own.

A heartrending, dark yet comedic novel, A House for Mr. Biswas masterfully evokes a man's quest for autonomy against an emblematic post-colonial canvas.

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Paperback

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Sep 1976 Penguin ISBN 0140030255
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Oct 1984 Vintage ISBN 0394720504
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Mass Market Paperback
May 1993 Penguin ISBN 0140186042
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Mar 2001 Vintage ISBN 0375707166
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Jan 2003 Picador (UK) ISBN 0330487191
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Jan 2003 Knopf (Canada) ISBN 0676975623
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Feb 2016 Pan Books (UK) ISBN 1509803505
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Hardcover

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Oct 1983 Knopf ISBN 039453400X
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Jan 1984 A. Deutsch ISBN 0233976388
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Jan 1984 A. Deutsch ISBN 0233955895
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Sep 1995 Alfred Knopf ISBN 1857152131
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Nov 1995 Everyman's Library ISBN 0679444580
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Aug 2020 Pan Books (UK) ISBN 1529013011
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eBook

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Oct 2010 Vintage ISBN B0046A9J9S
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Oct 2010 Knopf ISBN 0307776557
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Oct 2010 Picador ISBN 1509803513
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Jul 2017 Pan Books (UK) ISBN 0330522892
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Audio

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Jul 2017 Naxos AudioBooks ISBN B073RS5SHB
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Sep 2017 Naxos Audiobooks ISBN 1781980837
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