The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai [0]
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