The Inheritance of Loss

331 Pages·2006·1.16 MB·English

by  Desai Kiran

PENGUIN BOOKS
THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS
‘Kiran Desai is a terrific writer. This book richly fulfils the promise of her first’
Salman Rushdie
‘A wonderful writer of comic set-pieces. A novel that manages to be both warm-
hearted about human nature and clear-sighted about humanity’s flaws. Desai has
a mature, compassionate voice’ Observer
‘Moving and bleakly comic… informed by wit’ Sunday Times
‘Desai brilliantly transports you to her novel’s setting, making the characters’
hopes and dreams feel as familiar as your own’ Glamour
‘Written with scintillating assurance and moral rigour’ Spectator
‘Desai weaves a rich tapestry of back stories and historical threads’ Metro
‘No subject is tired when tackled with the energy and intelligence of Kiran
Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. Her Indian characters are exquisitely particular
– funny but never quaint… Bittersweet, entertaining and just shy of tragic.
Surprisingly wise’ Economist
‘Kiran Desai’s extraordinary new novel manages to explore, with intimacy and
insight, just about every contemporary international issue: globalization,
multiculturalism, economic inequality, fundamentalism and terrorist violence…
lit by a moral intelligence at once fierce and tender’ New York Times Book
Review
‘Desai is wildly in love with the light and landscape and the characters who
inhabit it. Summer comes alive with its sights and sounds and smells, and the
rainy season seems to pour down with more force than in any other novel you’ve
read… [She has] a love for language that few American writers her age seem
able to rival. This story of exiles at home and abroad, of families broken and
fixed, of love both bitter and bittersweet is one of the most impressive novels in
English of the past year, and I predict you’ll read it… with your heart in your
chest, inside the narrative, and the narrative inside you’ Chicago Tribune
‘A meditative look at the conflicting bonds of love and duty’ Vogue
‘Desai’s assurance and energy keep the plot on track and bring her ambitious tale
to a fittingly strong conclusion’ People
‘Seldom has an author offered so fearless a glimpse into how ordinary lives are
caught up in the collision of modernity and cultural tradition, and in the schisms
and fanaticism that all too often ensue’ Elle
‘With its razor insights and emotional scope, The Inheritance of Loss amplifies a
developing and formidable voice’ Los Angeles Times
‘Desai’s characters are so alive, the places so vivid, that we are always inside
their lives. Her insights into human nature, rare for so young a writer, juggle
timeless wisdom and twenty-first century self-doubt’ Boston Globe
‘Desai’s strength lies in her ability to capture, with humor and grace, the
nuanced complexities of the characters and their times’ Denver Post
‘The novel is finely accomplished in the way it makes connections between
private lives and public events’ Seattle Times
‘Sweet and savoury, sometimes wise and desperately forlorn, this is an engaging
second novel from a brave new talent’ Globe & Mail
‘With her second novel, Kiran Desai has written a sprawling and delicate book,
like an ancient landscape glittering in the rain… Desai has a touch for alternating
humor and impending tragedy that one associates with the greatest writers, and
her prose is uncannily beautiful, a perfect balance of lyricism and plain speech’
O: The Oprah Magazine
‘Glorious… luminous’ San Francisco Chronicle
‘Stunning… In this alternately comical and contemplative novel, Desai deftly
shuttles between first and third worlds, illuminating the pain of exile, the
ambiguities of post-colonialism and the blinding desire for a “better life”’
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
‘Desai’s Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard introduced an astute observer of
human nature and a delectably sensuous satirist. In her second novel, Desai is
even more perceptive and bewitching… Desai is superbly insightful in her
rendering of compelling characters, and in her wisdom regarding the perverse
dynamics of society. Desai incisively and imaginatively dramatizes the wonders
and tragedies of Himalayan life and, by extension, the fragility of peace and
elusiveness of justice, albeit with her own powerful blend of tenderness and wit’
Booklist
‘The book’s magic lies in [its] rich images’ Entertainment Weekly
‘A brilliant talent. Creating gorgeous pictures in the mind, Desai generously
embellishes on colours, fragrances and evocative landscapes’ Asiana
‘Exquisite. Kiran Desai meets the complexity of our times with a language that
is supple in its syntax and its rhythms. The story she tells is filled with patiently
acquired insights about humanity, and every other page is a hymn to nature’s
abundance’ Nadeem Aslam
‘A remarkable book, funny and insightful – a showcase for the amazing range
and depth of Kiran Desai’s writing’ Manil Suri
‘The Inheritance of Loss, so moving, funny, unflinching, is the best novel I’ve
yet read about the contemporary immigrant life and the ongoing parallel world
“left behind.” And the writing is extraordinary: astonishingly observant and
inventive, joyously alive. Really, it’s just the best, sweetest, most delightful new
novel I’ve read in ages!’ Francisco Goldman, author of The Divine Husband
‘If God is in the details, Ms. Desai has written a holy book. Page after page,
from Harlem to the Himalayas, she captures the terror and exhilaration of being
alive in this world’ Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante’s
Handbook
‘The Inheritance of Loss is a revelation in the possibilities of the novel. It is vast
in scope, from the peaks of the Himalayas to the immigrant quarters of New
York; the gripping stories of people buffeted by the winds of history, personal
and political. Kiran Desai’s voice is fiercely funny – a humour born out of
darkness, the laughter of the dispossessed. It is a remarkable novel because it is
rich in that most elusive quality in fiction: wisdom’ Suketu Mehta, author of
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
The Inheritance of Loss
Kiran Desai
PENGUIN BOOKS
To my mother with so much love
PENGUIN BOOKS
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First published in the United States of America by Atlantic Monthly Press,
an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. 2006
First published in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton 2006
Published in Penguin Books 2007
8
Copyright © Kiran Desai, 2006
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
“The Boast of Quietness,” translated by Stephen Kessler, copyright © 1999 by
Maria Kodama: translation © 1999 by Stephen Kessler, from Selected Poems
by Jorge Luis Borges, edited by Alexander Coleman. Used by permission of
Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of
trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-192573-8