May 30, 2014
THE LIVES OF OTHERS - Neel Mukherjee
Set in Calcutta in 1967 The Lives of Others is an ambitious, rich and compassionate novel, that anatomises the very soul of a nation in all its contradictions as it unfolds a family history.
We wanted a very rich...

THE LIVES OF OTHERS - Neel Mukherjee

Set in Calcutta in 1967 The Lives of Others is an ambitious, rich and compassionate novel, that anatomises the very soul of a nation in all its contradictions as it unfolds a family history. 

We wanted a very rich and colourful cover that didn’t portray India in a typically traditional way. After picking out important themes from the novel we commissioned William Bragg to illustrate them. Here are a few words from him about how he took this job on:

“The house on the cover is a key place in the novel as the story centres around one extended family who all live there. The central character in the novel ‘Supratik’ becomes estranged from the family and is thus depicted set apart leaning on the balcony at the top. 

I always start by working from my imagination, making quick sketches, trying out different compositions, with a focus on trying to capture how the scene looks and feels in my mind. When I’ve chosen a direction I’m happy with I’ll usually spend some time collecting reference imagery to inform the final drawing and help create a more convincing reality. In this case the author provided me with a photograph he’d taken of a wonderful house in Calcutta which was a great inspiration for the final image.

For this cover I supplied all the imagery separately so the designer was free to compose the final cover and make it work well with the typography.

I particularly like how the moon works, how it is caught in the power lines, its enormous size also gives it an emotional impact which draws you in at the same time as highlighting key information.”

The Lives of Others is published by Chatto & Windus

About