Half a Life
ABOUT
THE BOOK
In a corner of India untouched by anti-colonial agitation Willy Chandran’s father stood at odds with the world – aspiring to greatness whilst living out the dreary life marked out for him by his ancestors. In an attempt to defy his past, he lives with a low-caste woman only to find himself at the mercy of his own fury.
From this unhappy union the utterly compelling character of Willy Chandran emerges, oddly like his father, naively eager to find something that will place him both in and apart form the world. And so he is drawn to England, to the immigrant community of post-war London, its dingy West End clubs, lonely pavements and sexual encounters, and even to the eccentric milieu of the English writer.
But it is Willy’s first experience of love that might bring him the fulfilment he so desperately seeks. His wife, Ana, leads him to her home, a province in Portuguese Africa, a country populated by desperate businessmen and their frustrated wives all uncertainly living out the last days of colonialism.