The Bandit Queens — Паріні Шрофф

Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023

A BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick 2023

For Geeta, life as a widow is more peaceful than life as a wife…

Until the other women in her village decide they want to be widows, too.

Geeta is believed to have killed her vanished husband – a rumour she hasn’t bothered trying to correct, because a reputation like that can keep a single woman safe in rural India. But when she’s approached for help in ridding another wife of her abusive drunk of a husband, her reluctant agreement sets in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of all the women in the village….

‘Not since Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger has the rotten core of modern India been exposed in quite such blackly antic fashion as Parini Shroff manages here in this intermittently absurd, feminist revenge caper about a group of snarky, much-abused, predominantly Hindu wives…sheer gutsy verve.’ The Times

‘A darkly funny revenge drama rooted in the reality of rural India . . . [A] vivid, unsentimental story that succeeds in being both satirical and moving.’ Guardian

‘A radically feel-good story about the murder of no-good husbands by a cast of unsinkable women’ – New York Times

‘Mordantly humoured, pacey feminist revenge thriller’ – The Sunday Times