The Hindi writer Upendranath Ashk wrote and gathered a readership while remaining in the shadow of his contemporary, Saadat Hasan Manto. Falling Walls is the first volume of perhaps the most ambitious literary work undertaken by an Indian writer: a seven-volume cycle of novels that, inevitably, remained unfinished while drawing comparisons with Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past.

At 21, Chetan wants to be a writer. Obviously he will not succeed anytime soon. His journey is replete with disillusionment not just about the work he is compelled to do, but also about the people and social structures he encounters. He remembers things when buttons are pressed in his memory by events around him.

Chetan travels through several cities, all of them theatres of significant events before the Partition and independence of India and Pakistan. His memories lay a pattern on a seemingly haphazard and pointless existence, presenting a life that can only be encountered in literature.

Published in Hindi in 1947. Translated into English by Daisy Rockwell, published in 2015.