Synopses & Reviews
Ram Karan, a corrupt official in New Delhi, lives with his widowed daughter and his little granddaughter. Bumbling, sad, ironic, Ram is also a man corroded by a terrible secret. Taking the reader down into a world of feuding families and politics, is a work of rare sensibilities that presents a character as formulated, funny, and morally ambiguous as any of Dostoevsky's antiheroes.
Review
"An uncompromising novel, a portrait of a country ravaged by vendetta and graft." Hilary Mantel
Review
"Weaves the national into the personal without a trace of the didactic. What is more astonishing is his success in joining the amiably picaresque aspects of the corruption...with the ghastly evil of its underside." New York Review of Books
Review
"A moving, persuasive tragicomedy." Richard Eder New York Times
Review
"Stunning work." Entertainment Weekly
Review
"Extraordinary." The Nation
Synopsis
"A powerful debut novel that establishes Sharma as a supreme storyteller."--
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.