#BookReview ; Leila by Prayaag Akbar

In a digitized city, sometime in the near future, as an obsession with purity escalates, walls come up dividing and confining communities. Behind the walls high civic order prevails. In the forgotten spaces between, where garbage gathers and disease festers, Shalini must search for Leila, the daughter she lost one tragic summer sixteen years ago. Skirting surveillance systems and thuggish Repeaters, Shalini—once wealthy, with perhaps a wayward past; now a misfit, pushed to the margins—is propelled only by her search. What follows is a story of longing, faith and most of all loss. With its unflinching gaze on class, privilege and the choices that today confront us and its startling, almost prophetic vision of the world—Leila announces Prayaag Akbar as a remarkable new voice in Indian fiction. 

Leila is a dystopian fiction written by Prayaag Akbar & published by Simon & Schuster publishers. The author is a journalist & former deputy editor of Scroll, his award winning reporting & commentary have examined various aspects of marginalization in India. He studied at Dartmouth College & the London School of Economics. He lives in Mumbai with his wife & their cat.

We are introduced to a society where purity is a compulsion, there can be no union between people of two religions & if there is then their children will be ultimately taken away. In a world where there are big walls separating the digitized ‘modern’ world from the garbage infested areas where diseases are a regular thing. Shalini our narrator, has lost her husband & is on a mission to find her long lost daughter Leila who was taken away as she was the result of a Hindu-Muslim union. Something that is against the idea of purity of the society & totally discouraged. To follow her in her journey to find her daughter, get the book here

Prayaag Akbar built a world based upon the ills of our present state & gave rise to this book. There are very few Indian dystopian books which I have liked & this surely is one of the best I have read. The strings which join the reality with this story is evident & is presented in ‘on your face’ style. This story actually shows the terrifying path we are going on & if not amended the dystopian will indeed be a reality. I can’t wait to watch the Netflix show based on this book. The story kept me hooked till the end, only in certain place it seemed to drag unnecessarily. The language used, cover, title everything is apt. A must read!