SLOW FIRE

Slow Fire follows Suhra, a young woman in the coastal town of Thalassery in Kerala, India, who inherits her grandmother's tiny business making a fermented chili condiment from a living culture that has been fed by hand for four generations, and who carries it out into the world, to the Gulf, to Britain, to the United States, and into a trademark fight in China. It is a novel first, a story about family, inheritance, and what is gained and lost when something deeply local is carried across borders. It is also, beneath the surface and by design, a complete course in international business, dramatizing comparative advantage, market entry, cultural and institutional distance, supply chains and standards, currency risk, foreign investment, intellectual property, and the strategy of the multinational firm, all through choices the characters make and pay for rather than through any lecture. Written for MBA students and their instructors anywhere in the world, with local terms explained in the text and gathered in a glossary, and a separate concept map for teaching at the back, it is built to be read for pleasure by anyone and studied without the reader ever feeling taught.