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by Prajwal Parajuly
Shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, Prajwal Parajuly has established himself as a distinctive voice in literature about the South Asian diaspora. Now in his debut novel, Land Where I Flee about returning home, Parajuly demonstrates that he is, as Manil Suri noted, "a master capturing, with wit and humor, the day-to-day interactions between his characters."
To commemorate Chitralekha Nepauney's Chaurasi - her landmark eighty-fourth birthday - three of Chitralekha's grandchildren are travelling to Gangtok, Sikkim, to pay their respects. Agastaya is flying in from New York. Although a successful oncologist, he is dreading his family's inquisition into why he is not married, and terrified that the reason for his bachelordom will be discovered.
Joining him are his sisters Manasa and Bhagwati, travelling from London and Colorado respectively. One the Oxford-educated achiever; the other the disgraced eloper - one moneyed but miserable; the other ostracized but optimistic.
All three harbor the same dual objective: to emerge from the celebrations with their formidable grandmother's blessing and their nerves intact: a goal that will become increasingly impossible thanks to a mischievous maid and a fourth, uninvited guest.
"Parajuly's deft portrayal of his characters' relationships - both with each other and with their old and new homes - is original and convincing." - The Spectator (UK)
"[Parajuly] writes finely crafted prose in which local expressions and ideas constantly jump and weave." - New Statesman (UK)
"Parajuly focuses on the characters, their relationships, frustrations and longings while skillfully interweaving the narrative strands of this family saga into the history, politics and cultural divides of the Nepalese diaspora." - The Oxford Times (UK)
"Excellent ... spiky humour and deft handling of voice ... Parajuly describes this awkward family get-together with great narrative economy and a keen sense of comic timing. He also manages to work in some sharp commentary on Gangtok society." - The Independent (UK)
"Parajuly does justice to this collection of disparate individuals, as he cross-cuts between points of view, keeping the narrative moving through an artful release of information. He deftly makes them negotiate identities: those from the past, those in the present and those that are emerging." - The Sunday Guardian (India)
"Family reunion is an old writer's recipe but Parajuly successfully provides some fresh zing here. Concocting a pleasantly unsentimental plot peppered with zany characters, he draws a blend of humor and surprising sensitivity." - Asian Review of Books (Hong Kong)
"In clean, precise prose, Mr Parajuly's story unfolds through its finely rendered characters. Tension holds the strands of plot in place, building to a thoroughly satisfying climax. The result is an eminently admirable novel." - The Irish Examiner
This information about Land Where I Flee was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Prajwal Parajuly, the son of an Indian father and a Nepalese mother, divides his time between New York and Oxford, England, but disappears to Gangtok, his hometown in the Indian Himalayas, at every opportunity. Parts of his first collection of stories, The Gurkha's Daughter, were written while he was a writer-in-residence at Truman State University, in Kirksville, Missouri.
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