Filming: A Love Story by Tabish Khair

Set primarily in India and spanning the twentieth century, Filming tells a series of stories, including that of one-time prostitute Durga, who is persuaded to give away her young son, Ashok, and that of Saleem, the son of a prostitute and two-times star of the silver screen. As these stories - narrated by a writer who relates the details of other people's lives but is evasive about his own; a daughter who has inherited her father's hand-me-down version of their family history; and a scholar who deals in words but learns to read between the lines - intertwine and overlap, they combine to create a novel that is simultaneously about the small details and the bigger picture. Weaving together major historical events - including Partition, the assassination of Gandhi, the rise of photography and the Bombay film industry, and the development of barbed wire - with the everyday moments that make up the main fabric of our lives, Filming is a novel that is always more than the sum of its parts.