Synopses & Reviews
First published in 1966 by award-winning Marathi writer Anuradha Vaidya,
A Ragdoll for My Heart is a unique free verse novella now making its English debut [?]. The lyrical work, translated by Shruti Nargundkar, tells an age-old story: that of a woman’s longing for a daughter and the relationship they subsequently come to share. The story traces a mother-daughter relationship that begins first with unquestioning love and over time transforms into one of distance and tension.
Setting out life as a game with predetermined moves and rules that are meant to be twisted or negotiated, Vaidya deftly engages readers in a playful connecting of the dots, drawing us deeper and deeper into the lives of the characters. She employs beautiful allegorical imagery on each page of the poetic narrative and makes many allusions to life as a game played on the board of the globe—complete with her characters who act as pawns in the sprawling world of the narrative.
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"There's nothing like the pleasure of being devastated by a short novel. Like Jhumpa Lahiri, Akhil Sharma writes of the Indian immigrant experience with great empathy and a complete lack of sentimentality. is a dark and thrilling accomplishment by a wildly gifted writer." Ann Packer
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" will cut your heart to pieces but it will also make you rejoice. The language, the humor, the sophistication, the empathy, the insight--all signal a new kind of literature about families and the bonds with which they hold us tight." Gary Shteyngart
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"This is a wonderful novel by an excellent writer. Akhil Sharma's unsentimentality has the effect of making his writing uncommonly touching." Mohsin Hamid
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" is a terse, devastating account of growing up as a brilliant outsider in American culture. It is a nearly perfect novel." Elle
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"Sharma is a rare master at charting the frailties and failures, the cruelties and rages, the altering moods and contradictions, whims and perversities of a tragic cast of characters. But this most unsentimental writer leaves the reader, finally and surprisingly, moved." Edmund White
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"An immigrant story like no other: funny and dark, unrelenting and above all, true." Kiran Desai
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"Sharma's authority is mesmerizing and fun, and you’ll read in one enthralled go." Darin Strauss
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"This uncompromising testament to the human cost of love is exhilarating in its intelligence and unerring perception." Jayne Anne Phillips
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"Miraculous, heartbreaking, courageous, and awe-inspiring." Gabe Hudson
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"A loving portrait, both painful and honest." Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
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"If you're the betting type, put money on it: National Book Award, Pulitzer, and the Book Critic Circle-thingy. Akhil's in the running for a hat trick." Meg Wolitzer NPR
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"Riveting... Sharma is compassionate but unflinching." Sonali Deraniyagala
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"Bracingly vivid... Has the ring of all devastatingly good writing: truth." Molly Langmuir
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"A loving portrait, both painful and honest." Nell Freudenberger
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"[F]ine and memorable." Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
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"A heartbreaking novel-from-life... [Sharma] takes after Hemingway, as each word of his brilliant novel feels deliberate, and each line is quietly moving." Amie Barrodale Vice
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"An unsentimental, powerful portrait of immigrant life from an author who has been compared to Dostoyevsky." Maddie Crum Huffington Post
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"Sharma spent 13 years writing this slim novel, and the effort shows in each lucid sentence and heartbreaking detail." Angela Carone San Diego Magazine
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"Surface simplicity and detachment are the hallmarks of this novel, but hidden within its small, unembellished container are great torrents of pity and grief. Sedulously scaled and crafted, it transforms the chaos of trauma into a glowing work of art." Stephen Lee Entertainment Weekly
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"Like Jhumpa Lahiri, Akhil Sharma writes of the Indian immigrant experience with great empathy and a complete lack of sentimentality." Ann Packer
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"It will cut your heart to pieces but it will also make you rejoice." Gary Shteyngart
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"A nearly perfect novel." Edmund White
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"Sharma is a rare master." Kiran Desai
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"Dark humor twines through Sharma's unforgettable story of survival and its costs." The Wall Street Journal
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"I lost all track of time while I was reading it, and felt by the end that I'd returned from a great and often harrowing journey... To my own surprise, I found myself renewed after reading it, and imbued with a feeling of hope." Mary Pols People
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"With his subtly drawn point of view--recreating the child's perceptions but with the controlling sensibility of an adult intelligence--Sharma gives us a fully imagined world, both hard and consoling." John Wray Salon
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"If it's tragedy, why do I remember the jokes with such fondness? Most reviews of Family Life have adequately conveyed its harrowing cruelties. But since this Slate/Whiting project is intended to steer readers toward second novels they may have overlooked, I'd like to point out that beyond the sadness, the novel contains a deep, nourishing reservoir of grim humor, thanks to Ajay's deadpan and dead-eyed perceptions." Jon Garelick Boston Globe
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"Deeply unnerving and gorgeously tender." New York Times Book Review
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"Gorgeous." Colson Whitehead Slate.com
Synopsis
Known for his "cunning, dismaying and beautifully conceived" fiction (New York Times), Akhil Sharma delivers a story of astonishing intensity and emotional precision.
Growing up in Delhi in 1978, eight-year-old Ajay Mishra and his older brother Birju play cricket on the streets, eagerly waiting for the day they can join their father in America. America to the Mishras is, indeed, everything they could have imagined and more until tragedy strikes. Young Ajay prays to a God he envisions as Superman, searching for direction amid the ruins of his family's new life. Heart-wrenching and darkly funny, Family Life is a universal story of a boy torn between duty and his own survival.
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Synopsis
"Outstanding...Every page is alive and surprising, proof of [Sharma's] huge, unique talent."--David Sedaris
Synopsis
Hailed as a "supreme storyteller" () for his "cunning, dismaying and beautifully conceived" fiction (), Akhil Sharma is possessed of a narrative voice "as hypnotic as those found in the pages of Dostoyevsky" (). In his highly anticipated second novel, , he delivers a story of astonishing intensity and emotional precision.
Synopsis
America to the newly immigrated Mishras is everything they could have imagined and more. When automatic glass doors open before them, they feel that surely they must have been mistaken for somebody important. Then tragedy strikes. One of the family’s two sons suffers an accident in a swimming pool. Ajay, the family’s younger son, prays to a God he envisions as Superman, longing to find his place amid the ruins of his family’s new life. Heart-wrenching and darkly funny, Family Life is a universal story of a boy torn between duty and his own survival.
Synopsis
Named one of the Ten Best Books of 2014 by the and "Gorgeously tender at its core...beautiful, heartstopping... really blazes." --Sonali Deraniyagala,
About the Author
Akhil Sharma is the author of An Obedient Father, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Best American Short Stories, and O. Henry Award Stories. A native of Delhi, he lives in New York City and is an assistant professor of English at Rutgers University, Newark.