SOURCE: Kagal, Carmen. “Enduring in Bombay.” Far Eastern Economic Review 160, no. 8 (20 February 1997): 48-9.

In the following review of A Fine Balance, Kagal praises the depiction of humanism and universality of Mistry's writing despite the horrors and incredible tragedies within the novel.

For a change, the 1996 Booker Prize was relatively free of the usual bickering and controversy. True, the winner Graham Swift—for his Last Orders—did regret “the racehorse element” of the competition. But the only real excitement was generated by feminist writer Germaine Greer's outburst against the shortlisting of Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance. “I hate this book,” she said. “It's a Canadian book about India.” (The Bombay-born author has lived in Canada for the last 20 years.)

One can see why Greer was so incensed, for Mistry's novel is a harrowing tale of hideous misfortune. However, Greer's is a minority opinion. Both in India and abroad, A...