*Selected as a 2017 Book of the Year in the Guardian , New Statesman and The Irish Times* 'A brave and frequently devastating novel whose themes of displacement and dehumanisation are all too timely' Paul Murray 'The most astonishing and brilliant novel I have read in a long, long time' Hanya Yanagihara What happens when we attempt to exchange the life we are given for something better? Can we transform the possibilities we are born into? A State of Freedom prises open the central, defining events of our century - displacement and migration - but not as you imagine them. Five characters, in very different circumstances, from a domestic cook in Mumbai, to a vagrant and his dancing bear, and a girl who escapes terror in her home village for a new life in the city, find out the meanings of dislocation, and the desire for more. Set in contemporary India and moving between the reality of this world and the shadow of another, this novel of multiple narratives - formally daring, fierce but full of pity - delivers a devastating and haunting exploration of the unquenchable human urge to strive for a different life.