Blurb:
Meet Akhila: forty-five and single, an income-tax clerk, and a woman who has never been allowed to live her own life - always the daughter, the sister, the aunt, the provider - until the day she gets herself a one-way ticket to the seaside town of Kanyakumari. In the intimate atmosphere of the all-women sleeping car - the 'Ladies Coupe' - Akhila asks the five women the question that has been haunting her all her adult life: can a woman stay single and be happy, or does she need a man to feel complete?
This wonderfully atmospheric, deliciously warm novel takes the reader into the heart of women's lives in contemporary India, revealing how the dilemmas that women face in their relationships with hunsbands, mothers, friends, employers and children are the same world over.

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Ooh lovely, I've been looking for this one for ages, thank you!

Akhila takes a journey on a train in India, in the Ladies coupé, the sleeping car where women can travel and feel safe. As she talks to the other passengers we learn about life in India, education, work, the home and family, and in particular their experiences with men. The big question, which applies to women everywhere: do we need husbands? do we need men? I think the lesson to be learned is that we need to be touched, regardless of gender, and that touch should be gentle.

In places the narrative is violent and in others, sensual; it conjures up the hectic, colourful, stinking, fragrant atmosphere of southern India, and some passages are emotionally moving in their eloquence.

I stayed up late to finish Akhila's story, which came to an end when there were still quite a few pages to go - a section of recipes that have been added as an afterthought, and it is true that sometimes during these pages, I wondered what they were eating, as the names are not translated.

For the meetup

Read in French a few years ago. Will be released in Nyon soon.

Bookbox Chemin des Tines/Route du Boiron