Upamanyu Chatterjee est un auteur indien reconnu pour ses œuvres se déroulant au sein de l'Indian Administrative Service. Son écriture aborde souvent les aspects ironiques et satiriques de la bureaucratie et de la vie quotidienne en Inde. Le style de Chatterjee se caractérise par sa perspicacité profonde de la psychologie humaine et sa capacité à saisir les nuances des interactions sociales.
Agastya Sen, known to friends by the English name August, is a child of the Indian elite. August himself has just landed a prize government job, which takes him to Madna - a town with the highest temperatures in India - deep in the sticks. There he finds himself surrounded by incompetents and cranks, time wasters, bureaucrats, and crazies.
Jamun is a young man, adrift. His father, Shymanand, is old and his mother, Ursula, on her deathbed. As the novel opens, the family are gathering together for the inevitable parting. Tracking backwards and forwards in time and space, the book unfolds a picture of Jamun and his family.