An unnamed narrator lives in Bangalore with his wife, parents, sister and uncle, all packed into the same household and increasingly dependent on the success of the family spice business. 

Shanbhag looks at intimacy. He shows the way a family can behave like a single organism, protecting itself through silence, euphemism and mutual dependence while nobody quite admits what they are doing. The title — a nonsense phrase meaning something tangled beyond repair — becomes the book’s governing image for relationships in which affection, obligation, money and power can no longer be separated. Short, claustrophobic and darkly funny, Ghachar Ghochar has the precision of a fable. That's a big compliment. Originally written in Kannada and translated into English by Srinath Perur.

Faber & Faber, London, 2017. First UK edition. Paperback. Light shelf and edge wear, with minor rubbing to covers and corners. Internally clean and unmarked; binding firm. Very good condition.