Between the Assassinations – A critical Study

Between the Assassinations: A Critical Study by Dr. G. Ebenezar Helan is a comprehensive critical exploration of Aravind Adiga’s 2008 collection of interlinked short stories set in the fictional coastal town of Kittur (1984-1991) – the seven-year gap between the assassinations of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. She analyses the seven narratives as a microcosm of postcolonial India, employing Marxist, subaltern and cultural studies frameworks to examine how caste, class, corruption, communalism and gender intersect in small-town life. The study foregrounds Adiga’s portrayal of the marginalized – the school teacher, the bookseller, the Muslim boy, the lower-middle-class worker – as victims of systemic inequality and as voices of resistance against the dominant power structures. Highlighting Kittur as a counter-narrative to metropolitan India, the book argues that Adiga’s Kittur is not merely a locale but a socio-political metaphor for contemporary India’s contradictions, making it an essential resource for students of Indian English Literature, postcolonial criticism and socio-literary studies.