Set in pre-Independence era of India, the book is about the Parsi community of corpse bearers who carry the dead bodies for burial in Bombay.

[3][4] Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature in 2014 and the Sahitya Akademi Award for English in 2015.

The son of a priest who is inept at his studies, Phiroze compounds his family’s disappointment by falling in love with Sepideh, the daughter of a khandhia.

Writing for Daily News and Analysis, Aditi Sheshadri called it an "interesting and uncommon account of social discrimination" but further said that it is not the "stirring, dramatic, intensely personal tale of love and loss that it could have been.

"[7] Bakhtiar K. Dadabhoy of Outlook said, "Peppered with grey humour, irony and tragedy, this well-crafted book is a winner.