Late one June afternoon, seven months after my wedding, I woke from a short, deep sleep, in love with my husband.

Whether describing the tensions of an arranged marriage, the trauma of having an alcoholic mother, or the petty corruption of an Indian neighbourhood, Akhil Sharma’s stories always expose the cultural collisions - the paradoxes, ironies, and harmonies - that characterise modern life. What does it mean to be foreign? And can you find a home in exile?

In these elegant, unsparing and unusually intimate stories - five of which were first published in the New Yorker - the Folio Prize-winning author explores these questions with disarming honesty. Marrying the minimalism of Chekhov and Carver with an unparalleled flair for dark comedy, A Life of Adventure and Delight is a book of wisdom, wonder and poignant reflection from a writer courageous enough to explore the darkening margins of the psyche.