''Narcopolis'' is the

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to pu ...

of Indian author

Jeet Thayil Jeet Thayil (born 1959) is an Indian poet, novelist, librettist and musician. He is the author of several poetry collections, including ''These Errors Are Correct'' (2008), which won the Sahitya Akademi Award. His first novel, ''Narcopolis (book ...

, which was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize. It is set in 1970s

Old Bombay South Mumbai, colloquially SoBo from South Bombay in Indian English, administratively the Mumbai City District, is the city centre and the southernmost precinct of Greater Bombay. It extends from Colaba to Mahalaxmi (Western side), Byculla ...

and concerns

opium Opium (also known as poppy tears, or Lachryma papaveris) is the dried latex obtained from the seed Capsule (fruit), capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid mor ...

and its influence. The novel's narrator arrives in Bombay, where he becomes seduced into the opium underground. The story expands to encompass such characters as Dimple, a ''hijra'', Rashid, the opium house's owner, and Mr Lee, a former Chinese officer, all of whom have stories to tell.

Autobiography element

The novel draws on his own experiences as a drug addict, and what he calls "the lost 20 years of my life". it took him five years to write the novel, and he called it "the opposite of catharsis. Catharsis gets stuff out of you. But this put bad feelings into me." Thayil decided to call the book ''Narcopolis'' "because Bombay seemed to me a city of intoxication, where the substances on offer were drugs and alcohol, of course, but also god, glamour, power, money and sex".

Reception

According to ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', "Narcopolis is a blistering debut that can indeed stand proudly on the shelf next to Burroughs and De Quincey."

References

{{reflist 2012 Indian novels English-language novels Novels set in the 1970s Novels set in Mumbai 2012 debut novels Works about opium Penguin Books India books