Ardashir Vakil

Ardashir Vakil (b. 1962) was born in Mumbai and finished his schooling at The Doon School. He now lives in London and teaches English at Hornsey School for Girls.

His first book Beach Boy, a growing up tale of an adolescent in the city of Mumbai, was very well received and shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award. The second book One Day is set in London, in a way mirroring Adarshir Vakil’s own “half and half Mumbai and London life”. The idea of dichotomy in one’s character is one that finds favour with this writer.

Ardashir Vakil won the Betty Trask Award in 1997.

Works

• Beach Boy
• One Day

One Day

One Day is a twenty-four-hour journey into the lives and minds of Ben Tennyson, his wife Priya Patnaik, and their small boy, nicknamed Whacka. Something has gone wrong with Ben’s marriage of eight years to the enigmatic Priya, a thirty-one year-old Indian Londoner. In the course of the day—which happens to be Whacka’s third birthday—we learn about a crisis that has brought turmoil to their marriage.