On sale from Counterpoint NOVEMBER 25, 2025
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A story collection drawn from the ample body of work long out of print and out of the public eye
VOX Critics' Pick For 10 Best Books Of The Year.
A collection of stories drawn from the ample body of work published in the New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, Cosmopolitan, London Magazine, Encounter and other short story collectiomns, all long out of print and out of the public eye. Ruth Jhabvala began publishing in the New Yorker in 1957 and this collection spans decades. This story collection traces Jhabvala’s development as a writer and showcases her powers of keen observation as she examines the westernization of India’s middle class, the interplay of social and romantic ambition, and the social mores that plague her characters, regardless of their geographical background.
The introduction is from the lecture Jhabvala gave when awarded the Neil Gunn Prize in Scotland in 1979, a piece titled “Disinheritance” that examines the effects Germany, the UK, India, and New York had on ton her journey as a writer and how they influenced her buoyant, satiric fiction.
PRAISE FOR RUTH PRAWER JHABVALA
" Brilliant, unsparing examinations of the human condition in all its variety."
--Kirkus Review
Jhabvala discloses with candor, sensitivity and wit, truths people most want to keep hidden.
--The Wall Street Journal
“Jhabvala's fiction serves, always, to remind us of the universal vulnerability of mankind."
—The Boston Globe
" Jhabvala offers canny insights into the clash between modernity and tradition . Readers will find plenty to admire."
--Publishers Weekly
Many of this book's (Disinheritance) elegant and understated stories are a welcome addition to her collected works.
--Highbrow Magazine
Disinheritance offers a useful reminder of Jhabvala's talent of slipping into the perspective of others.
---NPR
“Jhabvala is one of those rare writers who manages to be simultaneously caustic and loving with her creations."
—The Wall Street Journal
“One of the 20th century’s great female writers."
—The Washington Post
“Jhabvala’s prose does share Austen’s acerbic wit and a well-cadenced fluency, confident in the strength of syntax to sustain explication—and comedy—without flashy language."
—The New Yorker
“Vivid, unsparing portraits are leavened with the kind of humanizing moments that evoke a total world within their compression."
—The New York Times Book Review
“The elegant, clear-eyed fiction Jhabvala left behind shows us the very things her characters can’t—or choose not to—perceive: Love is a power dynamic, and it’s rarely diplomatic."
—O, The Oprah Magazine
“Jhabvala writes how people talk, or how people used to talk. Her stories bespeak a slice of time during which people could both interact with others quite unlike them and talk with the expectation of privacy with people quite like them: a world post–Wright brothers, pre-internet."
—The Atlantic
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