When he was little, Orko thought that he was going to grow up to be exactly like his mother. After she disappears, he struggles with the realisation that he is a boy, and boys grow up to be men. He prays to Ma Lokhi to turn him into a girl, like his friend Urmi, but his wish is not granted. Then his father signs him up for football camp, and it is there that things begin to go horribly wrong?
Set in 1980s’ Calcutta, Fern Road Boy is an extraordinary debut—a tender, moving and immersive story of a young boy’s journey through conflict and confusion to self-realization and strength.