The Vicks Mango Tree

A few months after the Emergency is declared in India, Raj Iyer, a young and inexperienced journalist from the alley of the Vicks mango tree, goes underground. Years later he reappears as a bronze statue in a corner of the Municipal Park. Nobody is quite sure why he is so famous, though people say a book is being written that celebrates him as a modern hero of Mangobaag.

The novel follows the small, fictional region of Mangobaag, and through it India itself, across twenty-one months of suspended civil liberties, half-hearted protests and strict censorship. Ordinary people chase middle-class dreams here, among them Teacher Bhatt, Rabia Sheik and Shankar Iyer. Alongside them are local legends such as Maharaja Muneer Shah, Miss Myna and Dr Abid Ali, who live out their lives in the fading light of a grander past.

Filled with eccentric characters and odd situations, the book captures the politics and the possibilities of a period not so far behind us. It is Anees Salim's first novel.