A whimsical and innovative debut novel, HAPPY is the story of a starry-eyed cinephile who leaves his rural village in Punjab to pursue his dreams - set against the global migration crisis.

In a small farming village in Punjab, India, a boy crouches over his brother's phone in a rapeseed field watching clips of Godard's Bande a part on YouTube.

His name is Happy Singh Soni and when he's not sleeping among the cabbages and eating sugary rotis, Happy dreams of becoming an actor, one who plays the melancholy roles; the sad, pretty boys, rare in Indian cinema. He plans a clandestine journey to Europe, where he'll finally land a breakout role.

After a nightmarish passage to Italy, Happy still manages to find relief in food and fantasy, even as he is forced into ever-worsening work conditions on a radish farm by the syndicate involved in smuggling him to Europe to pay off the supposed debt they claim he has accrued. While disillusionment amongst the farm workers rise, Happy will find the love - and tragedy - that his favourite films always promised.

At turns funny and heart-breaking, sunny and tragic, Happy is a formally ambitious novel about the psychic fissures produced by the splintering of nations, and the lovely, generative, artful coping mechanisms created by generations of diasporic people. With this ingenious, daringly cinematic debut, Celina Baljeet Basra argues for the things that are basic to human survival: food, water, shelter, but also pleasure, romance, art, and the right to a vivid inner life.

For fans of Vikas Swarup and Charles Yu, the story of a starry-eyed cinephile who leaves his rural village in Punjab to pursue his dreams—a formally daring debut novel set against the global migration crisis. In a rural village of Punjab, India, a moony young man crouches over his phone in a rapeseed field near his family’s cabbage farm. His name is Happy Singh Soni, and he’s watching YouTube clips of his favorite film, Bande à Part by Jean-Luc Godard. In fact, Happy is often compared to a young Sami Frey by the imaginary journalists that keep him company while he uses the outhouse. Pooing, as he says, “en plein air.� When he’s not sleeping among the cabbages and eating his mother’s sugary rotis, Happy dreams of becoming an actor, one who plays the melancholy roles—sad, pretty boys, rare in Indian cinema. There are macho leads and funny boys en masse, but if you’re looking for depth and vulnerability, you must make your own heroes. Then comes Wonderland, an eccentric facsimile of Disneyland that steadily buys up the local farms, rebranding the community’s traditional way of life. Happy works a dead-end job at the amusement park, biding his time and saving money for a clandestine journey to Europe, where he’ll finally land a breakout role. Little does he know that his immigration is being coordinated by a transnational crime syndicate. After a nightmarish passage to Italy, Happy still manages to find relief in food and fantasy, even as he is forced into ever-worsening work conditions over a debt he allegedly accrued in transit. But his daydreams grow increasingly at odds with his bleak reality, one shared by so many migrant workers disenfranchised by the systems that depend on their labor. At turns funny and poetic, sunny and tragic, Happy is a daring feat of postmodern literature, a polyphonic novel about the urgent, lovely coping mechanisms created by generations of diasporic people. Set against the enmeshed crises of global migration and the politics of labor within the food industry, Celina Baljeet Basra’s luminous debut argues for the things that are essential to human survival: food, water, a place to lay one’s head, but also pleasure, romance, art, and the inalienable right to a vivid inner life.

'A MIRACULOUS NOVEL' MEGHA MAJUMDAR | 'A BONKERS STORY THAT READS LIKE A FINE TEN-COURSE MEAL' GARY SHTEYNGART A young cinephile leaves his rural village in India with big dreams, only to find himself trapped in menial jobs and forced to work off a debt he may never repay. In a small farming village in Punjab, India, a boy crouches over his brother's phone in a rapeseed field watching clips of Godard's Bande à part on YouTube. His name is Happy Singh Soni and when he's not sleeping among the cabbages and eating sugary rotis, Happy dreams of becoming an actor, one who plays the melancholy roles; the sad, pretty boys, rare in Indian cinema. He plans a clandestine journey to Europe, where he'll finally land a breakout role. After a nightmarish passage to Italy, Happy still manages to find relief in food and fantasy, even as he is forced into ever-worsening work conditions on a radish farm by the syndicate involved in smuggling him to Europe to pay off the supposed debt they claim he has accrued. While disillusionment amongst the farm workers rise, Happy will find the love - and tragedy - that his favourite films always promised. At turns funny and heart-breaking, sunny and tragic, Happy is a formally ambitious novel about the psychic fissures produced by the splintering of nations, and the lovely, generative, artful coping mechanisms created by generations of diasporic people. With this ingenious, daringly cinematic debut, Celina Baljeet Basra argues for the things that are basic to human survival: food, water, shelter, but also pleasure, romance, art, and the right to a vivid inner life.