Prayaag Akbar’s debut novel brings to mind the frighteningly prescient Nineteen Eighty-Four

It’s been heralded as one of the major fiction debuts to watch out for this year. Prayaag Akbar’s Leila is a dark, dystopian view of a city governed by boundaries and order – where the rules of the Council are imperative to obey or the Repeaters will violently punish you; where those who marry outside their religion or go against heteronormative norms are sent to Purity Camp; and people live in fear in gated communities segregated by their religion. At the heart of the story is 43-year-old Shalini whose daughter Leila has been snatched away from her, her Muslim husband Riz murdered brutally, fighting to maintain her sanity while being packed off to the Towers.