FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TRAILBLAZING CROSS-CULTURAL NOVEL BORN CONFUSED

TANUJA DESAI HIDIER

COMES THE AWARD-WINNING SEQUEL

“A lovingly detailed homage to Bombay… Once again, [Desai]

Hidier delivers an immersive blend of introspection, external drama, and lyricism.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Light blue touchpaper and retire: Bombay Blues crackles and burns like a fuse of gunpowder as

Tanuja Desai Hidier again takes

the coming of age novel to diasporic places it's never been before.”

—William Dalrymple

BOMBAY BLUES

☆“Dense, lyrical, full of neologic

portmanteaus and wordplay: This is a prose poem meditation on love, family and homecoming… A journey worth making.”

—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Chock-a-block with musical references as well as linguistic

leaps of faith that only a musician

could have pulled off.” —The Sunday Guardian

(cover story)

Winner of the 2015 South Asia Book Award

Its award-winning sequel, crossover/adult novel Bombay Blues sees heroine Dimple Lala journey from

NYC to India. Set against the backdrop of Mumbai’s contemporary indie music and arts scene, Bombay

Blues continues to explore everything this diasporic generation faces today with a heady mix of

uncertainty and determination, despair and inspiration, haunting loss and revelatory love… as the

metropolis of her motherland becomes Dimple’s challenging muse and partner on a journey into the

unmapped—and unexpected.

Tanuja has also released a ‘booktrack’ album of her original songs based on the novel: Bombay

Spleen. The music video for ode-to-Bombay “Heptanesia” is now airing on MTV Indies.

ABOUT BOMBAY BLUES

Author/singer-songwriter and “booktrack” innovator Tanuja

Desai Hidier broke new ground in 2002 with her literary debut

Born Confused, the first-ever South Asian American coming-of-

age novel. Born Confused—recently hailed by both Rolling

Stone Magazine and Entertainment Weekly as one of the

greatest YA novels of all time (on lists including such classics as

To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, and Little

Women)—gave voice to a new multicultural generation.

MORE PRAISE FOR BOMBAY BLUES

“Teeming with energy and music… a chronicle of Bombay cool.”

— Hindustan Times

“Highly recommended.”

—VOYA

“Living between and betwixt worlds isn't easy. Writing about it, even less so. That's what makes Tanuja Desai Hidier's Bombay Blues such a special book.

Suspended between New York and a new Mumbai, she croons out the big questions

without being ponderous, she mashes in the small, revealing details without being trite. It's the Bombay blues with an electronica underbeat.

There's a groove for everybody in this mix.”

—Naresh Fernandes, author of Taj Mahal Foxtrot:

The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age and City Adrift: A Short Biography of Bombay

“This hypnosis cast by words and music is a vortex we might be

tempted never to leave.”

—Homegrown

“Tanuja Desai Hidier is a cosmopolitan bringer of joy. With unflagging inventiveness, she

makes literature that has the glamour of rock and roll, and rock and roll that has the richness of literature. Both her novel Bombay Blues and its companion album Bombay

Spleen are irresistible, a totality through which Desai Hidier is making literature new again, and newly exciting.”

—Zachary Lazar, author of I Pity the Poor Immigrant

and Sway and winner of the John Updike award

A BOOK EXPO AMERICA BUZZBOOK

Nominated for the KIRKUS

PRIZE

Official selection at the ZEE/JAIPUR LITERATURE

FESTIVAL 2015

Winner of the 2015 SOUTH ASIA BOOK AWARD

BOMBAY SPLEEN Songs based on Tanuja Desai Hidier's novel Bombay Blues

“A lovely, jazz-infused ode to Bombay…

This has to be one of the nicest, most

aesthetically pleasing ways to reel in

new readers.”

—The Sunday Guardian

“Heartfelt, and filled with great melodies and

imagery.” —Karsh Kale (musician, producer)

Bombay Spleen (Igloo By Night Records) is Tanuja’s second album in her groundbreaking genre of the ‘booktrack’: a dozen tracks of infectious electro-dream-pop ‘wreckage rock’ based on Bombay Blues. Produced by Dave Sharma, featuring Atom Fellows and Marie Tueje and special musical guests including world-renowned trumpet-player Jon Faddis and bassist Gaurav Vaz (of The Raghu Dixit Project), Bombay Spleen draws from the book’s themes—love, home, cultural history, and the mapping/unmapping of identity—with the musical narrator’s personal journey paralleling that of heroine Dimple’s, as well as that of Bombay’s development itself: from its beginnings as seven islands later reclaimed to become the city we know today.

“A ‘Bombay’ song that could easily double up as a James Bond theme…Desai Hidier’s jazzy-pop tune [“Heptanesia”] is a worthwhile addition to the small

cluster of non-Bollywood Bombay songs around.” —Mumbai Boss, culture pick

"Rhythmically heavy, lyrically sharp, and—though it can be savored independently—an absolute must for Bombay Blues readers, bringing as it does

the entire tale's world to your ears."

—DJ Rekha

AVAILABLE ON ITUNES WORLDWIDE. PHYSICAL EDITIONS AT CDBABY.COM.

“Heptanesia” music video now airing on MTV Indies

“Seek Me In The Strange” selected for award-winning feature film Other

People’s Children soundtrack

“Deep Blue She” selected for the #VogueEmpower playlist

(Vogue India’s social awareness initiative for women)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found author Suketu Mehta says the novel “fills a void for an entire generation of young desis looking for a book that tells their story.” When We Were Twins, Desai Hidier’s album of original songs based on Born Confused, was featured in Wired Magazine for being the first-ever “booktrack.” Her new award-winning crossover/adult novel Bombay Blues —deemed “a journey worth making” in a starred Kirkus review, “an immersive blend of introspection, external drama, and lyricism” by Publishers Weekly, “teeming with energy and music…a chronicle of Bombay cool” by The Hindustan Times, and “Chock-a-block with musical references as well as linguistic leaps of faith that only a musician could have pulled off” by The Sunday Guardian (“Bibliophiles Plug In” cover story)— and her accompanying album of original songs Bombay Spleen (“the hypnosis cast by words and music is a vortex we might be tempted never to leave”, says Homegrown) are out now in the USA/Canada, and launched in India January 2015 at the Jaipur Literature Festival where Tanuja appeared on both the book and music stages. The music video for Bombay Spleen track “Heptanesia” is currently airing on MTV Indies. Track “Seek Me In The Strange” was selected for the soundtrack of director Liz Hinlein’s award-winning feature film Other People’s Children (starring Diane Marshall-Green and Chad Michael Murray), and “Deep Blue She” for the #VogueEmpower playlist (Vogue India’s social awareness initiative for women). Tanuja has also collaborated with the legendary State of Bengal (Björk, Massive Attack, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Cheb i Sabbah) and is currently working on new musical and fiction material.

Background: Tanuja grew up in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and moved to NYC after attending Brown University. During her NYC years she worked jobs as a copyeditor, magazine writer/editor, interned at the literary magazine The Paris Review, hostessed at a Tex Mex restaurant, worked as a secretary in the Whitney Museum’s Film & Video Department, walked a saluki dog (who one day escaped and sent her on a 100 mph chase through Central Park), co-hosted an online streaming music program, party promoted at nightclubs, wrote and directed the award-winning short film The Test, and was the front-woman in punk-pop band io, regularly playing the downtown circuit—in other words, she assiduously avoided writing a novel (which she did as well trans-Atlantically during a year of living in Paris, France). It was only when she moved into a flat on Portobello Road in London that the tale of Dimple Lala became clear: Born Confused was born after nine months of writing around the clock in nearby cafes and at a desk by the flat window overlooking the fruit and veg vendors of Portobello Market, Intoxica Records, and a betting joint. Bombay Blues—well, that’s another story.

www.ThisIsTanuja.com

Tanuja Desai Hidier is an award-winning author/singer-songwriter and the

innovator of the ‘booktrack’. She is the recipient of the 2015 South Asia

Book Award (for Bombay Blues), the James Jones First Novel

Fellowship, and the London Writers/Waterstones Award, and her short

stories have been included in numerous anthologies. Her pioneering novel,

Born Confused, was named an American Library Association Best Book

for Young Adults and became a landmark work, recently hailed by both

Rolling Stone Magazine and Entertainment Weekly as one of the

greatest YA novels of all time on lists including such classics as To Kill A

Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Little

Women, the Harry Potter series, and Huckleberry Finn. USA Today

commended it as “compelling and witty…gives voice to a new generation

of Americans…a rare and daring portrayal.” In starred reviews, Publishers

Weekly praised it as “absorbing and intoxicating…sure to leave a lasting

impression,” and Kirkus Reviews called it “a breathtaking experience.”

BORN CONFUSED

Selected by Rolling Stone Magazine and Entertainment Weekly as one of the greatest

YA novels of all time on lists including such classics as To Kill A Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye,

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Little Women, the Harry Potter series and Huckleberry Finn.

An American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults

“Compelling and witty … gives voice to a new generation of Americans.

A rare and daring portrayal.”

— USA Today

☆"Absorbing and intoxicating, this book is sure to leave a lasting impression."

— Publishers Weekly, boxed and starred review

“A breathtaking experience.” — Kirkus Review, starred review

Tanuja Desai Hidier ThisIsTanuja.com