Intrigued by an unsettling photograph of a porn actress, a disillusioned journalist embarks on an investigation into the womans life, a journey that takes him to conflict-torn Burma into the lives of strangers who share rumors about a social worker who may be able to provide answers. By the author of The Point of Return. 20,000 first printing. Amrit is a reporter for the Sentinel, dispatched to the region - an unnamed and remote part of India - on the vaguest of assignments. Initially reluctant, and aware for a while that his career is going nowhere, Amrit has thought of turning the situation to his advantage by the time he departs: he will write a story for a foreign magazine where he has a vague contact and an even vaguer chance of a job.A mysterious room in the office archives provides him with the perfect story for the foreign magazine: a photograph of a young woman, involved in pornography, taken captive by a shadowy insurgent group, and paraded before the press as a lesson to others like her. Yet, following her trails through dead-ends and paths that peter out, Amrit soon learns that in the region nothing is quite what it seems: the woman, the insurgent group, a place known as the Prosperity Project, the director of the project, and even Amrit himself. Amrit is warned off, then persuaded closer, finds himself either biding his time or hurrying forwards. Finally, with his goal in sight, Amrit is forced to rethink his quest - and, indeed, where his journey will take him next.Set in a region as real as it is imaginary, Surface sketches the boundaries between illusion and truth, and the lives of people caught in the middle. They gave me the vaguest of assignments before packing me off to the region, introducing the subject late one night in the company urinals. So begins the story of Amrit, a young, disillusioned journalist at a Calcutta daily, a Sikh, who finds a disturbing photograph of a woman and decides to investigate the story of her life and the violent incident captured by the photograph. His research takes him halfway across India, to a region of seven hill states bordered by China and Burma, where drugs, guns, and timber sustain the crumbling economy and where militancy and insurgent movements brew, threatening to spill over into a larger conflict. Amrits journey is as uncertain as the woman he wishes to find, interrupted by odd mishaps, intrusive strangers with disturbing stories, false leads, and, above all, disquieting rumors about a man running something called the Prosperity Project -- a man who may have the answers to all Amrits questions. A dramatic and tense narrative that sheds new light on India at moral, political, and social crossroads, An Outline of the Republic is a suspenseful, epic novel that traces the boundaries between illusion and reality, and the lives of people caught in the middle.
