Generation 14 – a Novel by Priya Sarukkai Chabria

Open Space – Talking Poetry, along with Landmark, Pune recently organised a launch-cum-reading of Generation 14 – a novel by Priya Sarukkai Chabria, co-published by Zubaan and Penguin India.



The novel was released at the hands of eminent city-based architect, Sir. Christopher Benninger, followed by a reading and slide presentation by Priya Sarukkai Chabria. The reading was followed by an informal discussion.



GENERATION 14 – a novel by Priya Sarukkai Chabria



"I am a fourteenth generation Clone and something has gone wrong with me.

Not that my DNA is altered, not that I am a mutant. Not that any function need be eliminated. It's nothing obvious. It's terminal, and secret. Let me put it this way: I remember."



Set in the 24th century, the novel journeys back and forth across millennia to explore ideas of plural identity, and what it means to be human. This extraordinary novel is unlike any other coming from the subcontinent, and heralds a new generation of fantasy writing from India.



“Priya Sarukkai Chabria is remarkable both as poet and novelist and her twin aspects are clearly evident in Generation 14, for while the book is, on the one hand, a piece of ambitious and inventive science-fiction about cloning and control, it is, also, most importantly, concerned with the poetry of belonging, selfhood and commitment. The scenes are vividly visualised and carried through at a convincing pace. Chabria depicts a violent world out of which revolutionary forces emerge out of history to round out a new world that is an echo of the lost, awakening the new to a deeper, more humane consciousness. “ – George Szitres, winner of the T S Eliot Memorial Poetry Prize.