A Fine Balance

A Fine Balance is the second novel by Rohinton Mistry, published by McClelland and Stewart in 1995 and following his earlier Such a Long Journey. It is set in an unidentified city in India, beginning in 1975 and continuing into 1984 through the period of the Emergency.

The book gathers four characters from very different backgrounds: two tailors, Ishvar and his nephew Omprakash, who have come from a village to the city; Maneck, a student whose parents have arranged his lodgings; and Dina Dalal, the widow who takes them in and starts a tailoring business with them. The arrangement is a matter of survival for all four, and the novel follows it through the political conditions of the decade.

Mistry writes with a broad cast and a great deal of ordinary detail, and the Emergency is present as something that reaches into the smallest arrangements people make. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and it is widely regarded as his central work, with the novel's length allowing all four characters to be followed through each stage of the arrangement.