The Inheritance of Loss

Kiran Desai's first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was published to unanimous acclaim in over twenty-two countries. Now Desai takes us to the northeastern Himalayas where a rising insurgency challenges the old way of life. In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga lives an embittered old judge who wants to retire in peace when his orphaned granddaughter Sai arrives on his doorstep. The judge's chatty cook watches over her, but his thoughts are mostly with his son, Biju, hopscotching from one New York restaurant job to another, trying to stay a step ahead of the INS, forced to consider his country's place in the world. When a Nepalese insurgency in the mountains threatens Sai's new-sprung romance with her handsome Nepali tutor and causes their lives to descend into chaos, they, too, are forced to confront their colliding interests. The nation fights itself. The cook witnesses the hierarchy being overturned and discarded. The judge must revisit his past, his own role in this grasping world of conflicting desires-every moment holding out the possibility for hope or betrayal. A novel of depth and emotion, Desai's second, long-awaited novel fulfills the grand promise established by her first.

Author: Kiran Desai
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Published: 11/28/2005
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.26lbs
Size: 9.26h x 7.08w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780871139290


Award: National Book Critics Circle Award - Winner
Award: Kiriyama Prize - Finalist
Award: Book Sense Book of the Year Award - Honor Book
Award: Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction - Nominee


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 09/15/2005 pg. 48
Kirkus Reviews 10/01/2005 pg. 1045
Publishers Weekly 10/24/2005 pg. 34
Library Journal 11/01/2005 pg. 63
Entertainment Weekly 01/13/2006 pg. 85
Booklist 12/01/2005 pg. 26
New Yorker (The) 02/06/2006 pg. 83
New York Times 02/12/2006 pg. 11
New York Review of Books 02/15/2007 pg. 18
Library Journal 04/01/2013 pg. 46