"While presenting a gallery of smaller roles in order to explore the ideological ferment of that moment. Rege belittles none of these voices as she sets them at play, and, finally, at war. The effect is an urgent, vital orchestration, capturing both the complexities of the subcontinent and the capacities of the novel." -- The New Yorker, "Best Books of 2024" "A scintillating novel of ideas and personal transformation...Whats remarkable is that the speakers never sound like hollow ideological vessels. They hold forth from deep-seated places of fear and yearningfatefully united, like the country itself, by their intractable disagreements...Throughout, the scope of the book's ideas and textured rendering of its characters contribute to an oceanic feeling of simultaneous scale and intimacy. It is akin to the sensation we experience when immersed in the great Russian fiction of the 19th century...[ Quarterlife is] by a distance the best debut of the year." -- Sam Sacks - The Wall Street Journal "A fearless achievement...An urgent, vital orchestration...Reges seriousness of purpose runs like an electrical wire through the book. Diversity is here the means of inquiry, inextricable from the questions the novel asks of diversity...[ Quarterlife's] classic amplitude of form allows for the slow and steady examination not only of illiberal voices but also, more interestingly, of a variety of quasi-liberal [ ones]...Rege belittles none of these voices as she sets them at play and, finally, at war." -- James Wood - The New Yorker "The outcome of [ Reges] quest isnt flawless, but it captures a fundamental truth about the 21st century, not just in India but all over the globalized world: that life is riddled with conflict and asymmetry among people close to and far from one another." -- Somak Ghoshal - Foreign Policy "Quarterlife explores the impossible, exhausting, and universal question of how to be good, compounded by the problem of Hinduism, with its millennia-old caste oppression and the BJPs most recent antidemocratic homogenization efforts. The slippery, multifaceted modes of Hinduism encountered by Reges characters reflect the novels complexity. Inspired by James Agees Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Reges research informs a story that avoids prophesying, instead embracing ambiguity in an epilogue that tempers the novels overwhelming feeling of despair." -- Apoorva Tadepalli - The Baffler "A bonafide stunner. Reges plot and characters are outstanding. The novel starts in a smaller scope than one might expect but then blossoms into a grand view of India, politics, and friendship. Her grasp on how to keep a reader hooked is evident throughout the novel." -- Adam Vitcavage - Debutiful "A remarkable debut novel that feels as if it had been lived with and thought through for years, its every choice deeply considered and yet also brave, riskyits got an assurance rare for first books." -- Public Books "Quarterlife, is an essential work of fiction, enriched by its authors complex feelings about her country...One of the most ambitious literary works to come out in years." -- John Clum - New York Journal of Books "Quarterlife promises to be an essential read for this moment in history." -- Literary Hub "What a blazingly original voice, what a fiercely intelligent engagement with contemporary world politics and culture. Devika Rege is at the forefront of a new generation of authors who are challenging received notions of what transnational literature can do and remaking global literary culture in the process." -- Vauhini Vara, Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Immortal King Rao "An exploration of the relationship of the self with the nation in the fashion of the big novels of Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh...[ Reges] biggest achievement is her fidelity to her object of exploration and her refusal to make aesthetic concessions in its representation. She resists the fictionalists urge to simplify..." -- Anuradha Marwah, Biblio "A landmark novel...Rege has a vast descriptive repertoire, is willing to take astonishing risks with structure, and is immaculate in her numerous interiority dives. Her hand is so sure, its often impossible to believe that Quarterlife is a debut." -- Tanuj Solanki, The Indian Express "Whats especially exciting is the freshness in Reges turn of phrasethe rhythm in her sentences feels new, and marks the arrival of a voice we have not heard before in Indian literature in English." -- Swati Daftuar, The Hindu "Dazzling, sophisticated, and wholly achieved in its ambition...Devika Rege is a transformative novelist." -- Maureen McLane, author of More Anon
