Chandrasekhar, adolescent, vulnerable, confused, is growing up in the momentous period before and after 1947, when Hyderabad is the State of Nizam. This political setting drumbeats through the novel, closely and ironically interwoven with Chandru’s life at home, in the city and at college. The Eighteenth Parallel, won the Ilakkia Chintanai Book-of-the-Year Award in 1977, and was selected by the National Book Trust of India for translation into several Indian languages. The novel appears in English for the first time in a unique and sensitive translation by Gomathi Narayanan.