Critics' Opinion:
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Published Apr 2013
384 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
With humor, intelligence, and masterly prose, Lavanya Sankaran's debut novel brilliantly captures the vitality and danger of a newly industrialized city and how it shapes the dreams and aspirations of two very different families.
Anand is a Bangalore success story: successful, well married, rich. At least, that's how he appears. But if his little factory is to grow, he needs land and money, and, in the New India, neither of these is easy to find.
Kamala, Anand's family's maid, lives perilously close to the edge of disaster. She and her clever teenage son have almost nothing, and their small hopes for self-betterment depend on the contentment of Anand's wife: a woman to whom whims come easily.
But Kamala's son keeps bad company, and Anand's marriage is in trouble. The murky world where crime and land and politics meet is a dangerous place for a good man, particularly one on whom the well-being of so many depends.
Rich with irony and compassion, Lavanya Sankaran's The Hope Factory affirms her gifts as a born storyteller with remarkable prowess, originality, and wisdom.
"Starred Review. Sankaran's debut novel, like her well-received short story collection (The Red Carpet, 2005), is a vivid exposé of modern India's growing pains." - Kirkus
"Within this compelling tale, Sankaran addresses government corruption in India, and the balance that must be struck between new industry and the traditions of the past in a culture where both are essential for survival." - Booklist
"Sankaran firmly establishes her talent through the nuances of her characters and a striking exploration of culture." - Publishers Weekly
This information about The Hope Factory 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.
Lavanya Sankaran is the author of The Red Carpet, a collection of short stories set in Bagalore, India, that won Poets & Writers magazine's Best First Fiction award. Sankaran has written for The Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, The Times of India, and Outlook, among other publications in America, India, Italy, and France. She studied at Bryn Mawr College and lives in Bangalore. The Hope Factory is her debut novel.
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