A Suitable Boy

Published in 1993, Indian writer Vikram Seth’s epic novel A Suitable Boy immediately drew comparisons to lengthy works by other authors on this list, including Proust and Leo Tolstoy. Already a highly regarded poet, Seth turned to prose to…

He turned to prose in A Suitable Boy, which depicts relations between four Indian families. The book’s compelling narrative and great length invited critical comparisons to Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Honoré de Balzac, and Charles Dickens; a miniseries adapted from A Suitable Boy appeared in 2020. In 1999…

…novel about India after independence, A Suitable Boy (1993), is a prodigious feat of realism, resembling 19th-century masterpieces in its combination of social breadth and emotional and psychological depth.