Fiction of India
Tamarind Woman by Anita Rau Badani
Tamarind Woman tells the story of Kamini and her mother, Saroja, nicknamed Tamarind Woman due to her sour tongue, who is bitter because of her loveless marriage and her thwarted ambition to become a doctor. When Kamini receives a postcard from her mother saying that she has sold their home and is traveling through India by train, both are plunged into the past to confront their dreams and losses.
For Matrimonial Purposes by Kavita Daswani
Unmarried at 24 – and with no prospects in sight – Anju is a great source of worry to her family. Despite the best efforts of others to arrange a marriage, she can't seem to find a husband – or at least one she's willing to marry. Eager to escape the community that views her as a failure, Anju boards a plane bound for the United States and a dream of a career. And although husband-hunting isn't any easier in New York City, at least she's got company!
Diamond Dust: Stories by Anita Desai
Gathering together radiant new stories, this collection travels from India to the American Northeast, deftly exploring the tensions between social obligation and personal independence, between old traditions and new.
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Set in India in a small Himalayan community along the border with Nepal, its center is the once grand, now decaying home of a melancholy retired judge, his valiant cook and beloved dog. Sai, the judge's teenage granddaughter, has just moved in, and she finds herself enmeshed in a shadowy fairy tale-like life in a majestic landscape where nature is so rambunctious it threatens to overwhelm every human quest for order. Add violent political unrest, fomented by poor young men enraged by the persistence of colonial-rooted prejudice, and this is a paradise under siege. Just as things grow desperate, the cook's son, who has been suffering the cruelties accorded illegal aliens in the States, returns home.
Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
From the bestselling author of The Mistress of Spices comes a passionate novel about the extraordinary bond between two sisters and the family secrets, jealousies and loves that threaten to tear them apart.
Son of the Circus by John Irving
Grasping for a self-identity after a life spent on the move, 59-year-old Dr. Farrokh Daruwalla visits India, where he meets a variety of colorful circus characters, including dwarf clowns, transvestites and movie stars.
The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru
Fathered by an Englishman, Pran Nath Razdan, the boy who will become the Impressionist, was passed off by his Indian mother as the child of her wealthy husband. Growing up spoiled in a life of luxury, at 15 the news of Pran's true parentage is revealed to his father, and he is tossed out into the street. Thus begins an extraordinary, near-mythical journey of a young man who must reinvent himself to survive – not once, but many times.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. Following a shipwreck, 16-year-old Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea.
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
This internationally acclaimed novel draws an unforgettable portrait of the cruelty and corruption, kindness and heroism of India. Set in 1975, this novel follows the destinies of four strangers who are forced to share a cramped apartment in an unnamed city by the sea.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Roy's debut novel is nominally the story of young twins Rahel and Estha and the rest of their family, but the book feels like a million stories spinning out indefinitely; it is the product of a genius child-mind that takes everything in and transforms it in an alchemy of poetry.
The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie
Winner of the Whitbread Award, Rushdie's novel is a peppery melange of genres: a deliciously inventive family saga; a subversive alternate history of modern India; a fairy tale as inexhaustibly imagined as any in The Arabian Nights; and a book of ideas on topics from art to ethnicity, from religious fanaticism to the terrifying power of love.
The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri
In this debut, mathematics professor Suri introduces us to the varied denizens of an apartment building where Vishnu, a vagrant alcoholic, lies dying, as neighbors argue about paying for the ambulance.