Which of the following statements correctly identifies the author and thematic focus of the novel “A Fine Balance”?

Correct — B. A Fine Balance (1995) is by Rohinton Mistry. It is set in an unnamed Indian city during the Emergency of 1975–77.

Its four main characters, a widow, two tailors and a student, are caught in the period's forced sterilisation and slum demolitions. Author and theme both match → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Salman Rushdie, focusing on post-colonial identity and magical realism — Salman Rushdie's theme here fits Midnight's Children, his magical-realist novel of India's birth, which won the 1981 Booker. A Fine Balance is Mistry's.
• (c)
  Jhumpa Lahiri, depicting the immigrant experience in 1980s New York — Jhumpa Lahiri writes of Indian immigrants in America, as in The Namesake and Interpreter of Maladies. A Fine Balance stays in India, during the Emergency.
• (d)
  Arundhati Roy, examining environmental activism and political corruption — Arundhati Roy won the 1997 Booker for The God of Small Things and has written essays on dams and activism. She did not write A Fine Balance.

Rohinton Mistry was born in Bombay in 1952 and moved to Canada in 1975. His novels are set in India and told from the perspective of Parsis.

A Fine Balance won the 1995 Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker in 1996. Its backdrop is the Emergency (1975–77), with its forced sterilisations and slum clearances.

Key facts

• A Fine Balance (1995), by Rohinton Mistry, is set during the Emergency of 1975–77.
• It won the 1995 Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize.
• Each of Mistry's three novels was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
• Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children won the 1981 Booker Prize.

Common traps

• Matching on theme alone. Rushdie, Lahiri and Roy all write about Indians, so fix the author first, then check the theme.

No directly related past PYQ was found.