Em and The Big Hoom

About the Book: Em and The Big Hoom

Winner of the Hindu Literary Prize 2012

It was also long listed for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.

Set in a one-bedroom-hall-kitchen in Mahim, Bombay during the last decades of the twentieth century, Em and The Big Hoom tells the compelling story of the Mendeses - mother, father, daughter and son. Between Em, the beedi-smoking, hyperactive mother, driven frequently to hospital by her mania and failed suicide attempts, and The Big Hoom, the rock-solid, dependable father, trying to hold things together as best he can, they are an extraordinary family. Filled with endearing and eccentric characters, and marked by sparkling dialogue and restrained emotion, this is one of the most powerful and moving novels to be published in India in a long time.

About the Author: Jerry Pinto

Jerry Pinto (born 1966) is a Mumbai-based Indian writer of poetry, prose and children's fiction in English, as well as a journalist. His noted works include Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb (2006) which won the Best Book on Cinema Award at the 54th National Film Awards, Surviving Women (2000) and Asylum and Other Poems (2003). His first novel Em and The Big Hoom was published in 2012.

The Buzz

“Utterly persuasive and deeply affecting: although suffused with pain, it shows no trace of self-pity. Parts of it are extremely funny. This is a profoundly moving book: I cannot remember when I last read something as touching as this.” - Amitav Ghosh

“ Em and The Big Hoom plunged me into a world so vivid, that when I finished, I found something had shifted and changed within myself. This is a world of magnified and dark emotion. The anger is a primal force, the sadness wild and raw. Against this, the jokes are hilarious, reckless, free falling. This is a rare and brilliant book, unlike any other that I have read coming out of India.” - Kiran Desai

“ Em and The Big Hoom is a beautiful book, a child's eye view of madness and sorrow, full of love, pain and unaccountability, much wild comedy. One of the very best books to come out of India in a long, long time.” - Salman Rushdie

“A marvellous debut, sensitive, livened by crystal-cut prose and Pinto’s trademark mordant humour. This is the best Indian novel in years.” - Prayaag Akbar, The Sunday Guardian