Coming of Age

As the narrative moves through a particularly defining time in the life of pre-adolescent protagonist Kiran, it tells the story of his coming of age – a story that, in the tradition of many other narratives of this genre, chronicles his maturation from a child-ish understanding of himself and the world into something a little more adult, a little more sophisticated. What makes this novel’s take on this archetypal experience unique is that unlike many other protagonists in similar stories, Kiran starts the story with has a fairly clear sense of who he is and how he wants to interact with the world, even though he is 12 years old. This is a manifestation of another of the book’s key themes, its exploration of the claiming and celebrating of difference (see below). In actual (or narrative) fact, for Kiran the experience of coming of...