Devika Rege’s debut novel Quarterlife began with a question about one moment in Indian politics: how had the country arrived at 2014? In a September 16, 2023 interview with Scroll’s AN Phiroze, Rege described sensing that year as a pivot before its consequences were clear. She also insisted that the novel is fiction, not a record of historical, economic or scientific fact. This article sets out what she said, how she describes the making of the book, and what readers can and cannot take from it.
Why 2014 became the starting point
Rege traces the idea to the years after college. A corporate job took her to markets in more than a dozen Indian states, which widened her view beyond Pune and Mumbai. A writing scholarship in the United States came next, and when she returned to India she sensed political change building toward the 2014 national election.
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Her own description of that instinct is direct. In her words: “I had a gut feeling this moment was a pivot; it was a response to changes that had been in the air for over a decade, and it would come to define Indian politics for years after.” She wanted to understand how India had reached that point, and she saw a related rhetoric gathering in the West at the same time.
That is Rege’s account of why she started the book. It is not an independent finding about 2014, and the political reading in the novel should be read as hers.
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From groundwork to fiction
After coming back to India, Rege says she did substantial groundwork and journalistic reporting. She then chose fiction, and she describes that choice as instinctive rather than a plan made in advance.
She names James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men as an influence on how she approached that material. She points in particular to the book’s humility toward its subjects and to the way findings shape the text that is written from them.
On the timeline, Rege describes most of the novel coming together in an intense creative period of five to six years. Earlier writing fed into it, and later events sharpened her sense of the 2014 moment. Scroll’s introduction says separately that she spent almost five years preoccupied with the book. These are two descriptions of the same long process, given in different framings, and neither is an external measure of how long the work took.
Why fiction, not a source of fact
Rege is clear that the reporting did not turn the novel into a factual document. In the interview she says: “But however well it is researched, the novel is not intended to be a source of historical, economic, or scientific fact.”
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The characters and subplots are composites. In Rege’s description they are shaped by real events, people and facts, but they are not portraits of specific individuals or documented cases. A reader who wants to know what happened in 2014, or how an economic or scientific process worked, should consult reporting and scholarship. The novel’s value lies elsewhere: in how it imagines lives under those conditions.
Form: interiority, voices and narration
Rege says the novel’s form was shaped by a set of questions that evolved with the manuscript. She lists three:
- Who receives interiority. Which characters the reader gets inside, and which stay at a distance.
- Whether polyphony can slide into moral relativism.
- What ethical implications follow from first- versus third-person narration.
She says these questions affected both the story and the way it is told. The shifting viewpoints are therefore not only stylistic. They carry a position on whose perspective counts, and on how much a narrator can excuse by presenting several sides.
Mumbai as a map of class and space
Scroll’s introduction places the novel in Mumbai and describes its varied settings. The book moves between:
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- old-money flats in South Bombay
- Lalbaug chawls
- new corporate towers near Mahim Creek
Each setting carries a different social texture. Rege describes identity as operating across local, regional, national and transnational registers at once. That framing explains why a character’s neighbourhood, language and workplace can each pull them toward a different political reality.
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Naren, Amanda and Omkar
In the interview Rege discusses the three main characters in relation to their social setting and identity. One example she gives concerns Amanda. Her unfamiliarity with Indian surnames can hide caste implications, and the consequences of that blind spot are more serious than Naren’s unfamiliarity with American social cues. The example shows that not every gap in a character’s knowledge carries the same weight, and that the ones that matter most are often the least visible.
Reading it as an open exchange
Rege does not prescribe how readers should respond to the book. She describes it as an open-ended exchange, in which the reader’s imagination completes the work. That position matches her treatment of the political moment itself: she offers a reading of 2014, and the novel asks its readers to test that reading against their own understanding.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Editions and recognition
The novel is available in several physical formats. The publisher catalogues below were checked in October 2026, and stock and local availability can change, so confirm the edition with the retailer before buying.
Best Value
| Format | ISBN | Listed by | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardback | 9780349705132 | Hachette UK; Hachette Australia | Hachette UK lists an on-sale date of January 23, 2025 |
| Trade paperback | 9780349705125 | Hachette Australia | On-sale date not stated |
| Paperback | 9780349705156 | Hachette Australia | Hachette UK lists a paperback format; ISBN not stated in that listing |
The novel first came out in India in 2023. Rege’s author page says it was published internationally in 2024 and 2025. The publisher’s listing and the author’s page also record the following recognition. These are reported by the publisher and author, not confirmed by the award bodies themselves:
- 2024 Mathrubhumi Book of the Year
- 2024 Ramnath Goenka Sahitya Samman for Best Debut Fiction
- Shortlisted, 2023 Atta Galatta Prize for Fiction
- Shortlisted, 2023 Kalinga Literary Award for Fiction
What this account establishes, and what it does not
The main source for Rege’s views is the Scroll interview of September 16, 2023. It records her perspective at that time, and it should not be read as a new statement about the book or about 2014. The publication details come from the publisher and author pages and reflect their listings as of October 2026. The interview is strongest on how Rege describes her own process, her formal choices and her ethical concerns. It does not test the novel’s details against outside sources, and it does not offer statistics that could be used as evidence about the period.
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