Overview
āNew York Times
"Bighearted."
āNew York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice/Staff Pick
ā Publishers Weekly ā Bookpage ā Booklist
In a rural village of Punjab, India, a moony young man crouches over his phone in a rapeseed field near his familyās cabbage farm. His name is Happy Singh Soni, and heās watching YouTube clips of his favorite film, Bande Ć Part by Jean-Luc Godard. In fact, Happy is often compared to a young Sami Frey by the imaginary journalists that keep him company while he uses the outhouse. Pooing, as he says, āen plein air.ā When heās not sleeping among the cabbages and eating his motherās sugary rotis, Happy dreams of becoming an actor, one who plays the melancholy rolesāsad, pretty boys, rare in Indian cinema. There are macho leads and funny boys en masse, but if youāre looking for depth and vulnerability, you must make your own heroes.
Then comes Wonderland, an eccentric facsimile of Disneyland that steadily buys up the local farms, rebranding the communityās traditional way of life. Happy works a dead-end job at the amusement park, biding his time and saving money for a clandestine journey to Europe, where heāll finally land a breakout role. Little does he know that his immigration is being coordinated by a transnational crime syndicate. After a nightmarish passage to Italy, Happy still manages to find relief in food and fantasy, even as he is forced into ever-worsening work conditions over a debt he allegedly accrued in transit. But his daydreams grow increasingly at odds with his bleak reality, one shared by so many migrant workers disenfranchised by the systems that depend on their labor.
At turns funny and poetic, sunny and tragic, Happy is a daring feat of postmodern literature, a polyphonic novel about the urgent, lovely coping mechanisms created by generations of diasporic people. Set against the enmeshed crises of global migration and the politics of labor within the food industry, Celina Baljeet Basraās luminous debut argues for the things that are essential to human survival: food, water, a place to lay oneās head, but also pleasure, romance, art, and the inalienable right to a vivid inner life.
This book title, Happy (A Novel), ISBN: 9781662602733, by Celina Baljeet Basra, published by Astra Publishing House (November 12, 2024) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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