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The Inheritance of Loss

3.33 of 5 stars 3.33 · rating details · 23,511 ratings · 2,540 reviews

In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas lives an embittered judge who wants only to retire in peace, when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorstep. The judge’s cook watches over her distractedly, for his thoughts are often on his son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one gritty New York restaurant to another. Kiran De...more

Paperback, 357 pages

Published 2005 by Grove Press

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Booker Prize Winners

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Dec 04, 2011 K.D. Oliveros rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to K.D. by: Man Booker Prize 2006, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2004-2010)

Shelves: 1001-non-core, booker, india, race

So far, this is the Man Booker Prize winner that is most relevant to me as an Asian. Most countries in Asia were once colonies of European or American countries and their influences will forever stay no matter how many centuries have passed. Also, this is one of the most readable. Although the verses are oftentimes playful, the storytelling is concise. Almost all the characters seem to be alive and the imageries that the scenes create seem like imprints that will stay in your mind for a long tim...more So far, this is the Man Booker Prize winner that is most relevant to me as an Asian. Most countries in Asia were once colonies of European or American countries and their influences will forever stay no matter how many centuries have passed. Also, this is one of the most readable. Although the verses are oftentimes playful, the storytelling is concise. Almost all the characters seem to be alive and the imageries that the scenes create seem like imprints that will stay in your mind for a long time.

It may not be as comprehensive as Salman Rusdie’s Midnight’s Children although it is also about India that used to be under the British empire. However, it is more exact with its urgent message: the loss of the nation’s true identity due to western influences. The true Indian identity that was an amalgam of the nation’s own culture and tradition spawning several centuries when they were still free of foreign influences. After all, India has one of the oldest civilizations in the world.

It may not be as tear-jerking and bewildering as Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things although it is also about Indian families trying to survive the Third-World realities of life. However, it is more realistic with the characters finding themselves in the situations that were not imposed to them but mostly of their own choices. I think this is what made me appreciate Desai’s over Roy’s: that her characters have choices, despite the fact that those options are limited because of the harsh environment that they happened to live in.

It may not be as current as Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger although it is also about the changing landscape of a small Indian town. However, Desai’s storytelling is more engaging as she has this rare ability to take you in a roller-coaster ride: you’ll be in enthralled by her playful verses, in deep thoughts by her heartfelt message, in gratitude by being in a better state in life than her characters, in aversion to any form of racial discrimination by following the sad fate of Biju hopping from one job to another as an illegal alien in the USA and yet, in the end, you will feel cheering for her characters as you are able to identify yourself with them. That no matter what we go through in life, there is still hope that awaits us at the end of each tumultuous journey.

One of my GR friends once commented that he has veered away from novels with India as a setting because they are always about being destitute and poor. There may be some truth on this. However, novels are supposed to be about reality and that’s how most of the people live in India. I have been to Mumbai thrice. In my 27 years in the corporate world, I have been fortunate to work under 4 Indian nationals and each of them has been telling me about too much politicking that hinders the development and progress in their country. They are all good bosses: with good education, very smart, knowledgeable, conscientious, culture-sensitive and appreciative. They and the other Indian people I had a chance to meet make me wonder: how come that despite many good people in India, they seem to have difficulty in putting their acts together to propel their country to a higher ground?

Then I thought, I might as well be talking about the Filipinos and the Philippines.
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Nov 23, 2012 Paul rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels, india

I'm not going to say that this novel is bad

(Chorus of GR friends : Say it, go on, you know you want to...)

but it was pretty ghastly for me. It was strangled to death by a style you could describe as inane wittering, a crew of characters all of which are loveably eccentric and a plot that Ms Desai believes will take care of itself as the inane wittering puthers all over the loveable eccentrics.

So, to sum up

BAH

30 likes · like · see review

Mar 20, 2007 jess rated it 2 of 5 stars

While the writing was lovely and the theme of the conflicting Indian identities in post-colonial India and in the United States was really interesting and supported with well-developed characters... but.
I just couldn't get into it and found it like pulling teeth to get through.

22 likes · like · see review

May 02, 2007 Sreevatsa Kota rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Have you ever lived a dream outside a slumber during your waking hours? This book makes it possible.I have come to realise that every Booker-winning novel follows a distinctive pattern of sorts that reveals all the instantly recognisable Booker leitmotifs that are vital to the plot: A range of emotions that both flavour and colour it. Thus, crude hilarity, raw sex, untold pain and interminable suffering,not to mention loads of scatology,form the mainstay of a typical Booker story. And the primar...more Have you ever lived a dream outside a slumber during your waking hours? This book makes it possible.I have come to realise that every Booker-winning novel follows a distinctive pattern of sorts that reveals all the instantly recognisable Booker leitmotifs that are vital to the plot: A range of emotions that both flavour and colour it. Thus, crude hilarity, raw sex, untold pain and interminable suffering,not to mention loads of scatology,form the mainstay of a typical Booker story. And the primary aim and challenge of a Booker author is to magically splice all these disparate strands of the narrative together at the end that culminates in a climactic explosion and implosion of feelings of the reader.'This' is what I call the 'Booker watermark'. And 'The Inheritance of Loss' satisfies such criteria but it ought to have been more seemly titled 'The Inheritance of Hopelessness'.The dearth of hope, which, arguably, is the function of loss becomes palpable.The perpetual despair of the characters, the reader being nearly one of them, is a common thread that runs throughout the length of the plot holding them together like a many-beaded necklace and is also masked with screamingly funny humour- the character sketch of the batty old Bengali teacher-sisters for example, or their rival neighbour,Mrs Sen or even Biju’s zany sidekick, Saeed Saeed in the US and, the author’s descriptions of Mutt, the pet bitch,and her adorable canine antics,just to name a few.Such insertions offer a few welcome rays of soft light of cheer in an otherwise looming dark ‘hopeless’ plot.The storyline spans from the deceptively tranquil remote east to the seemingly loud and happening west.Biju, one of the chief characters, fights tooth and nail to get a visa for the US of A and finally succeeds in setting his foot in the 'Land of Dreams'but eventually takes off his rose-tinted spectacles and does some extensive soul-searching which ultimately throws up a volley of difficult questions in his face so that he is reduced to reconsider his vocation.Soon he sees the whole world around him crashing down and converging into one composite being- his father who has been slaving his miserable life away in servitude, thousands of miles away, to a bloodless retired Uncle Scrooge-like civil servant who cares for nothing else in the entire world but Mutt, his pet bitch: He loses the soundness of his mind when she goes missing.So, will Biju see his father ever again or remain ensnared in America for keeps? Will his father see his son, Biju, before he dies serving that monster of a master?Will the civil servant (the master) stand a chance to find his lost pet?- all this in an already irrevocably strife-torn Kalimpong where live the master, his cook-cum-servant and 'a breath of fresh air', the heroin, Sai- the civil servant's orphaned maternal granddaughter who is head-over-heels with her youngish tutor,Gyan,who constantly blows hot and cold on her much to her righteous indignation.Yet she cannot take her mind off him.So she braves the elements and communal riots on a rain-drenched afternoon to seek him out only to get a raw deal in return. She goes back home mortified.Will Gyan come back to her and requite her love?The haunting hopelessness and individual disavowal mark the theme at every step and Kiran Desai has done a fine job in spotlighting this stark feature which shines through, so to speak, the entire stretch of the narrative. She also substantiates by way of the atomised depictions of her characters the grim universal fact that some people, no matter what the circumstances, do not change; rather they refuse to change.At the near end,interestingly,the reader's craving for hope becomes insupportable and sure enough hope glimmers from the Himalayan summit; just let the mist float by and you could ‘reach out and pluck it’.There is no denying the fact then that ‘The Inheritance of Loss’ fully qualifies as a true-blue Booker book.
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Aug 09, 2007 JoAnne rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: nobody

i have only read half of this book, so perhaps i shouldn't rate it. but i want to warn other people away from it!

the author is obviously an intelligent writer, and she has a real mastery of language. much of the writing is somberly poetic. but perhaps she pays too much attention to detail..... the story is slow.....

i read up to the part where the judge returns from england and rapes his wife after she steals his powder puff, and i threw the book down in disgust.

it's not just what happens, but...more

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Aug 20, 2008 Philip rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Inheritance Of Loss by Kiran Desai is a magnificent, impressive novel that ultimately is disappointing. As a process, the book is almost stunningly good. As a product, it falls short.

The book’s language, scenarios and juxtapositions are funny, threatening, vivid and tender all at the same time. The comic element, always riven through with irony, is most often to the fore, as characters grapple with a world much bigger than themselves, a world that only ever seems to admit them partially, and...more The Inheritance Of Loss by Kiran Desai is a magnificent, impressive novel that ultimately is disappointing. As a process, the book is almost stunningly good. As a product, it falls short.

The book’s language, scenarios and juxtapositions are funny, threatening, vivid and tender all at the same time. The comic element, always riven through with irony, is most often to the fore, as characters grapple with a world much bigger than themselves, a world that only ever seems to admit them partially, and rarely on their own terms. The one criticism I have of the style is Kiran Desai’s propensity to offer up lists as comic devices, a technique that works a couple of times, but later has the reader scanning forward to the next substance.

An aged judge lives in the highlands of north India. As political and ethnic tensions stretch through the mountain air, he reconsiders his origins, his education, his career, his opportunities, both taken and missed. He has a granddaughter, orphaned in most unlikely circumstances, as her parents trained for a Russian space programme. But what circumstances that create orphans are ever likely? She is growing up, accompanied by most of what that entails.

The cook in the rickety mansion is the person that really runs the household, his rule-of-thumb methods predating the appliances he has to use and the services he has to provide. He manages, imaginatively. He has a son, Biju, who eventually forms the centrepiece of the book’s complex, somewhat rambling story. Biju has emigrated to New York, where he has made it big, at least as far as the folks back home think. On site, he slaves away in the dungeon kitchens of fast food outlets, restaurants, both up and downmarket, and a few plain eateries. Kiran Desai provides the reader with a superb image of globalisation when she describes the customer-receiving areas of an upmarket restaurant flying an advertised, authentic French flag, while in the kitchen the flags are Indian, Honduran, anything but French. Now there is true authenticity for you, offered up in its manufactured, globalised form.

Biju, of course, dreams of home, but the comparatively large number of US dollars he earns – at least as far as the folks back home see it – barely covers essentials in someone else’s reality.

The narrative of The Inheritance Of Loss flits between New York, northern India and elsewhere, and also between the here and now, yesteryear and the judge’s childhood. And perhaps it flits too much, because the scenes are often cut short before the reader feels they have made a point.

And ultimately this reader found that the book lacked focus. While the process was enjoyable, the product was not worth the journey. The Inheritance Of Loss seemed to promise to take us somewhere in this globalised confusion of identity, motive, routine, unrealised dreams and intangible desires, but eventually it seemed to have nothing to add to a sense of “well that’s how it is”, which is precisely where we started. There was an opportunity for more, but it was ducked.

The book was thus a thoroughly enjoyable read that threatened to achieve greatness through statement, but unfortunately missed the mark, and by a long way.
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Apr 30, 2008 Eveline Chao rated it 1 of 5 stars

i just started this. so far it has this very "pretty" style that i find a little too precious, but we'll see.
--
okay i'm only halfway through this & still disliking the writing style (so exquisite! so ethnic!) & her way of describing all action in present-tense gerunds is driving me nuts. but mostly i felt compelled to update because i just read like the grossest depiction of sex ever:

"in a dense frustration of lust and fury -- penis uncoiling, mottled purple-black as if with rage, blunde...more i just started this. so far it has this very "pretty" style that i find a little too precious, but we'll see.
--
okay i'm only halfway through this & still disliking the writing style (so exquisite! so ethnic!) & her way of describing all action in present-tense gerunds is driving me nuts. but mostly i felt compelled to update because i just read like the grossest depiction of sex ever:

"in a dense frustration of lust and fury -- penis uncoiling, mottled purple-black as if with rage, blundering, uncovering the chute he had heard rumor of -- he stuffed his way ungracefully into her....

Jemubhai was glad he could disguise his inexpertness, his crudity, with hatred and fury -- this was a trick that would serve him well throughout his life in a variety of areas -- but, my God, the grotesqueness of it all shocked him: the meeting of reaching, suckering organs in an awful attack and consumption; maimed, bruise-colored kicking, cringing forms of life; sour, hair-fringed gullet; agitating snake muscled malevolency; the stench of urine and shit mixed up with the smell of sex; the squelch, the marine squirt, that uncontrollable run -- it turned his civilized stomach."

yuck.

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okay final conclusion is that i don't have much more to say about this than what john said, which is that this is the most overwritten book ever. i kept bitching and moaning throughout me & gwynn's & kate's lijiang trip this past week about how burdened i was by having to read this book (i have this hangup about always finishing books i start even when i hate them) and was really relieved when i finally finished the damn thing & could abandon it in a cafe in lijiang. but my memory of the book is actually proving better than the actual experience of reading it. like i keep remembering neat details like a boy's father making him walk across fresh tar whenever they came across any, so that the soles of his shoes would last longer. i actually bought some shoes in lijiang with rope bottoms and am plotting how i can find a freshly tarred road in beijing to walk across.(less)

10 likes · like · see review

Jan 23, 2008 snackywombat (v.m.) rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: would-be everest climbers

With so much incredible praise riding on this book, I really expected more of it. So basically, I'm deducting points because I was disappointed by the build-up--I mean, the NBCC and Man Booker Prize? I guess that's not entirely fair though. Standing on its own, The Inheritance of Loss gives exactly what it promises. It describes the barren lives of characters that have been robbed of love or dignity or some necessary emotion in life, all juxtaposed against the twin backgrounds of an incredibly l...more

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Jun 03, 2007 Animesh rated it 4 of 5 stars

I come away with a lot better impression than that which I had upon reading the first 30 or so pages. It is a mature writing, with insight, sophistication, and a sense of the grandly tragic.

The author weaves a series of parallel stories--imageries--about some very different lives, each quixotic, each distinguished with a color of it own. All except one has only one thing in common--they are all cultural implants, all dancing in their separate destinies, spinning towards their fate that makes the...more

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Jan 26, 2011 Kat rated it 3 of 5 stars

This novel by Kiran Desai takes place largely in a Himalayan and Bengali corner of India, near to Nepal and Bhutan, inhabited by many people of many ethnicities. I can't help pondering what a different reading experience it must be for people well acquainted with the cultures portrayed there than for those, like myself, for whom it was a fascinating introduction to a particular time and place. While in the early stages of reading this novel I was inclined to view it as belonging--from my perspec...more

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Sep 27, 2007 James rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: lincoln-park-group, booker-prize, fiction, nb-critics-circle, asian-lit

The style of this book had no charms for this reader. I found the characters uninteresting and sometimes pathetic as I slogged my way through this dreary book. While there were moments of fine writing, for example the vital landscape is vividly portrayed, I could not overcome the disconnected approach the author used in telling her story. Stylistically the book jumped back and forth between different places and events in a way that seemed haphazard to me. Unfortunately there were no compelling c...more

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Dec 23, 2012 Chitralekha Paul added it

I completed reading this book but the strange thing is I am unable to rate it.I didn't have the patience to read it and sort of forced myself to go through. So I skipped most of the content to reach the end.The writing is no doubt powerful and strong. Some of the descriptions are too good but on the whole found the novel boring.The characters, except for the judge, the cook and Sai failed to have any impact. I was just not interested to know what the characters did or felt. Is there something w...more

3 likes · like · see review

Apr 18, 2009 Nicole Marble rated it 5 of 5 stars

Another Mann Booker prize winner this time from India. The first, and perhaps longest, lesson of the book is a new, to me, kind of poverty - inherited. After that, we see a pattern of life of many people in India and how the least of them are treated, and how they treat each other including when the lucky few (in their eyes) get to the US. One fascinating insight is the Hindu attitude to Islam - that Islam is so strict and so counterintuitive to human behavior that no one actually follows it. Th...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Jason added it

Shelves: read-2008

If I gave this book a rating based solely on the level of detail, this would have been a five star novel. I understand why this won the Man Booker award; it is clever and fully fleshed out, it is encompassing and empathatic and doesn't skimp on the wishing nor the pain. That being said, it's dull. The narrator contributes nothing with its detachment, no special insights are gained from its inability to dig deeper into the characters. We are given the perspectives of people who suffer, but there...more

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Jan 26, 2008 Pamela rated it 3 of 5 stars

I heard about this book when it came out in 2006. It got rave reviews from NY Times and other places. Since I am always interested in books written by authors of color (especially women of color) I was very excited to read it when I finally got it from the LA Library. However, I lost interest in the main story about halfway through the book(young girl named Sai, falling in love with her tutor, Gyan, while living with her grandfather & his cook during the backdrop of the Nepali Indian movemen...more

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Jun 25, 2007 Janice Pono rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: yes

Shelves: recent-reads

I saw the author Anita Desai on CNN's show Talk Asia. She is the youngest person to ever win the Booker Prize. I really liked her answers and personality so I decided to look for it during my New York trip. I was staying with my sister Joyce who coincidentally had a copy of the novel.

The Inheritance of Loss became my subway book since Joyce and Cesar lived about a 20-30 minute subway ride from Manhattan. It was an engrossing story. There are two main plots... the story of the Judge, his grand...more

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Mar 19, 2007 Marte Patel rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who like books that draw you in

Shelves: fiction, india

Ever since Kiran Desai won the Man Booker Prize in October last year, as the youngest female winner in the award’s 39 year history, I have been wanting to read it. I picked up my paperback copy from Heathrow while flying home for Christmas, but could not find the time. I admit I felt slightly apprehensive, thinking that as a Booker Prize winner it must be a difficult, challenging read.

Then the book was chosen as the March title for the SYP Oxford Book Club and I suddenly had both a very good rea...more

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Sep 22, 2007 Schnaucl rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned, read_2007, fiction, historical_fiction, february, book_club

I didn't like this book. Maybe it was an inability to empathize with another culture, but I think the more likely (I hope) explanation is that it felt like all the characters were given a very surface level treatment. There were 5 (arguably 6) characters the reader is supposed to care about but none of them are even close to being fully developed. I think it would have been a much stronger book if the author had focused on one or two characters and really developed them.

I'm also not sure why the...more

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Jan 22, 2009 Marianne Elliott rated it 4 of 5 stars

It took me far too long to get to this book. Now I can't wait to get my hands on "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard". The characters are vivid and despite their sometimes disastrous flaws, deeply endearing. The Himalayan setting is invoked in lush and fragrant detail - while Harlem on the other hand is harsh, incomprehensible and pungent. The moral insight of the young author left me with plenty to think about, when eventually I extracted myself from the magic of the world she had created.

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Sep 14, 2008 Marlon James rated it 5 of 5 stars

When I finally met Salman Rushdie (!!!!) within seconds we got to talking about this book. Like Moshin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Inheritance tackles radical territory, more radical than you might think. Both novels break from the traditional immigrant novel by having the main character break from the country of adoption and return to the country of origin. Sure the act is nothing new, but the post 9/11 instability is. This is a lot more striking than you might think— the basic concep...more

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Mar 18, 2008 Cher Johnson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Having read the reviews and expecting wonderful things, I was disappointed. I must say the last quarter of the book was brilliantly heartbreaking. But it took me much too long to learn to care about the characters. The choppy story and casual introduction of the characters didn't work for me, and I had to force myself to keep picking up the book. It did not flow for me. The story presents such a bleak view of the clash of the "first world" with the third world. It left no life untouched by trage...more

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May 30, 2010 Jana rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: east-and-aussie

I am being generous with this second star, and it's here because India with its English (post) colonisation is something that I can’t relate to, and something that I find interesting. But I still think this book is rather difficult to read and therefore difficult to like, I was really struggling. Desai’s characterisation is flat. She tried to do so much, plot itself is great, but I couldn’t relate, but relate at all, and it’s not because I am not an Indian so I don’t get the mentality, but becau...more

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Oct 09, 2007 Mata rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookclub07-08

This is not a happy story, but she is an amazing writer and I think this book is worth the time. It's a book about that weaves together the legacies of colonialism and immigration in multiple character stories. Even the peripheral characters in the book tie into the theme. You see each character explore a sense of belonging in India, Britain, the US, and how each person creates (or fails to create) their own community in these settings. I can understand why people don't like the story, but I thi...more

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Mar 17, 2009 Sps rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: language, character

The title made me procrastinate on starting this book. I didn't feel like being bogged down in tragic family saga, or a trap of postcolonial trauma.
And it was sort of both.
But I really enjoyed it anyway, with its gentleness and snarkiness, beating heart of natural beauty and little bursts of life history. It's well-peopled (you won't forget the judge, the cook, Noni and Lola, Sai, Mutt, Biju, Saeed Saeed...) and practically humid from the Kalimpong setting. Meanwhile the language is a treat be...more

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Feb 24, 2009 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Sarah by: Kathy Taylor

Shelves: travel, women-authors, 2009-reads, asia

Lovely novel - fit my mood at the end as I flew for endless hours from India to the US for my father's funeral. It was all so pointless and sad. Life leaves us with nothing at the end.

1 like · like · see review

Oct 04, 2009 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Great narration. I don't think I'd have enjoyed the book as much if I had just read it. Lovely writing. And interesting to see a first hand glimpse of modern issues in northeast India.

1 like · like · see review

Jun 08, 2008 Colin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This was a very good random-sleepyheaded-6AM-book-borrow to see me through numerous airports on my recent vaycay.

Desai's language is rich and nuanced, and I liked the way she explored complicated questions of assimilation, class, race, nationalism and family. She exposed difficult and sometimes ugly truths about human nature in a political and complicated world where history stays with us, while not rendering the characters themselves as simplistic villains or virtuous heroes. There's a lot to...more

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Apr 29, 2008 Sandie rated it 4 of 5 stars

The book is set in India and America, and is not as depressing as the title implies. My book group and I thought her characters could have been better developed, especially Sai. She shows a sense of humor in the book and some of her characters are endearing. We were not sure if the politics described in the book are based in a real situation or not.

I liked this book and really liked Kirin Desai's writing. She crafts beautiful prose. I now want to read something written by her mother Anita, whom...more

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Sep 07, 2007 Bhuv rated it 5 of 5 stars

I finally got my hands on The Inheritance of Loss from the library after reading this author's earlier book, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. I loved this book - I found it difficult to put down. The characters are developed well, and I thought it was wonderful how their stories were interwoven. I also loved the moves back and forth to different time periods during the book. The settings came alive to me due to the author's detailed portrayal of the house, the town, and other locations.

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Feb 26, 2009 Prashant R rated it 5 of 5 stars

It is very rarely that one comes across a book which touches upon big issues, in such a richly felt, detailed yet economic manner.

"The Inheritance of Loss",i am sure would be Kiran Desai's breakthrough novel. Set in Kalimpong (that beautiful town in the North East of India)in the mid 80's, this novel follows the journeys(and exiles) of its principal characters.

The retired grumpy judge, Jemubhai Patel, studied in a Victorian England, groomed by the Raj,all of which made him rise above his humble...more It is very rarely that one comes across a book which touches upon big issues, in such a richly felt, detailed yet economic manner.

"The Inheritance of Loss",i am sure would be Kiran Desai's breakthrough novel. Set in Kalimpong (that beautiful town in the North East of India)in the mid 80's, this novel follows the journeys(and exiles) of its principal characters.

The retired grumpy judge, Jemubhai Patel, studied in a Victorian England, groomed by the Raj,all of which made him rise above his humble roots, to be a revered, fearsome(and very confused) judge...Sai, his orphaned grand daughter, exiled from the convent to be home schooled (by those delightful Bengali sisters Noni and her sister Lola) discovering the first flush of youth, the first pangs of love, with her Nepalese tutor Gyan...or Biju, the judge's cook's son who is moving from one restaurant job to another, as an illegal immigrant in New York.

All the characters are sharply etched, clearly defined and follow an often unpredictable trajectory of departures and homecomings.

Kiran Desai, has an eye for detail, as is amply evidenced from her settings, from Kalimpong to New York, from Victorian England to Rural Gujarat, from the description of the Marks and Spencer's underwear (note never "lingerie"), to the tense and characteristic atmosphere in the American Embassy at New Delhi, to the impeccable description of "desi" girls in US of A... this book comes alive in these settings.. and the delights of reading, is in discovering one such fully realized situations after another...

For the grand scope and long journeys of the plot, this book is compact and economical, while being infinitely wise. The resolutions of some the characters are sad, (whoever told us that life is fair!)..but the writer allows us to experience the small joys of her characters lives, those moments in which they are truly themselves, berating the virtues of the US over England, living in their "grand civilizations" of "music, alcohol and friendship"

Little wonder then that Kiran Desai won the Booker Prize for this book, making her the youngest women in the history of the prize.(less)

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About Kiran Desai

Kiran Desai is an Indian author who is a citizen of India and a permanent resident of the United States. She is the daughter of the noted author Anita Desai.

Desai's first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (1998), gained accolades from notable figures including Salman Rushdie, and went on to receive the Betty Trask Award. Her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss (2006), won the 2006 Man Booke...more

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Quotes from The Inheritance of Loss

“Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.” — 75 people liked it

“The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind.” — 29 people liked it

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The Inheritance of Loss

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