The Inheritance of Loss: Summary and book reviews of The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, plus links to an excerpt from The Inheritance of Loss and a biography of Kiran Desai.
The Inheritance of Loss
by Kiran Desai
Hardcover: Jan 2006,
336 pages.
Paperback: Aug 2006,
384 pages.
Published to extraordinary acclaim, The Inheritance of Loss heralds
Kiran Desai as one of our most insightful novelists. She illuminates
the pain of exile and the ambiguities of postcolonialism with a
tapestry of colorful characters: an embittered old judge; Sai, his
sixteen-year-old orphaned granddaughter; a chatty cook; and the cook’s
son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one miserable New York restaurant
to another, trying to stay a step ahead of the INS.
In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga lives an embittered old judge who wants to retire in peace, then his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorstep.
When a
Nepalese insurgency in the mountains threatens Sai’s new-sprung romance
with her handsome tutor, their lives descend into chaos. The cook
witnesses India’s hierarchy being overturned and discarded. The judge
revisits his past and his role in Sai and Biju’s intertwining lives. A
story of depth and emotion, hilarity and imagination, The Inheritance of Loss tells “of love, longing, futility, and loss that is Desai’s true territory” (O: The Oprah Magazine).
BOOK REVIEWS
Media Reviews
Library Journal
She fails to get readers to connect and identify with the characters, much less care for them. The story lines don't run together smoothly, and the switching between character narratives is very abrupt.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This stunning second novel ... alternately comical and contemplative ...Desai deftly shuttles between first and third world.
Booklist - Donna Seaman
Starred Review. In her second novel, Desai is even more perceptive and bewitching....Desai 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.
The Washington Post - Donna Rifkind
Her keen appreciation of contradiction enriches the book, and, if the integrity of her narrative is less than perfect, the integrity of her ideological convictions is absolute.
New Yorker
Briskly paced and sumptuously written, the novel ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory.
The New York Times - Pankaj Mishra
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.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Gabrielle Renoir-Large A Luminous, but Melancholy Book It’s hard for me to say whether Kiran Desai’s second novel, the 2006 Man Booker winner, "The Inheritance of Loss," is panoramic or intimate. On one hand, it stretches from northern India to New York City to England, yet on the other, it... Read More
Rated of 5
by Priya This book is offending towards Indians. I am proud to be Indian and proud to be an American. The Inheritance of loss book hurt my feelings as an Indian.
The author is comparing the poor class of India to the advanced countries like England and America.The author clearly lacks... Read More
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Library Journal
Publishers Weekly
of 5
by Gabrielle Renoir-Large
of 5
by Priya
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