The Inheritance of Loss

20th Anniversary Edition

Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2006

The Inheritance of Loss is Kiran Desai's extraordinary Man Booker Prize winning novel. 
 
High in the Himalayas sits a dilapidated mansion, home to three people, each dreaming of another time. 
 
The judge, broken by a world too messy for justice, is haunted by his past. His orphan granddaughter has fallen in love with her handsome tutor, despite their different backgrounds and ideals. The cook's heart is with his son, who is working in a New York restaurant, mingling with an underclass from all over the globe as he seeks somewhere to call home. 
 
Around the house swirl the forces of revolution and change. Civil unrest is making itself felt, stirring up inner conflicts as powerful as those dividing the community, pitting the past against the present, nationalism against love, a small place against the troubles of a big world. 
 
'A Magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and political acuteness' Hermione Lee, chair of the Man Booker Prize judges 
 
'Poised, elegant and assured . . . breaks out into extraordinary beauty' The Times 
 
'Desai's bold, original voice, and her ability to deal in a grand narratives with a deft comic touch that affectionately recalls some of the masters of Indian fiction, makes hers a novel to reread and remembered' Independent

Kiran Desai is the bestselling author of two novels, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and The Inheritance of Loss, which won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

In the foothills of the Himalayas sits a once grand, now crumbling house - home to three people and a dog. There is the retired judge dreaming of colonial yesterdays; his orphaned granddaughter Sai who has fallen for her clever maths tutor; the cook, whose son Biju writes untruthful letters home from New York City; and Mutt, the judge's beloved dog. 
 
Around the house swirls mountain mist - but also the forces of revolution and change. For a new world is clashing with the old, and the future offers both hope and betrayal ...

Kiran Desai

Literary love stories are vanishingly rare these days, and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is that even more precious thing: a love story that's also profound, sparkling, funny, exquisitely written, and that teaches us how to live in full-throated exultation for the astonishments of this world. It has so many urgent things to say—about the costs and consolations of art, about power and class and race and freedom—that reading the book feels like a long conversation at night with your most interesting and ardent friend

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a spectacular literary achievement. I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever

I had been dying to read a gorgeously written, sweeping novel like this. Desai’s tale—devastating, lyrical, and deeply romantic—grapples with the complexities of artistic ambition, migration, loss, love, and confronts a central question: What does it mean to belong? How does one reach ever toward the future when haunted by the past? This poignant novel—rich with culture, heartbreak, and hope—was an unmitigated joy to read

Kiran Desai reveals the breadth and depth of time, how it weighs on families and nations caught within the drama of history. She captures this with a rare and astute sensitivity that, no matter her subject, casts a light on our present

A powerful novel by a writer strong enough to pull back together worlds that are being pulled apart

A grand and stirring love story, written in exquisite prose . . . [a] sheer delight!

A masterpiece . . . Desai’s trust in her own process pays off, as vignettes of just a page or two intersect with the novel’s central obsessions—love, family, writing, the role of the U.S. in the Indian imagination, the dangers faced by a woman on her own—and come to a perfectly satisfying close . . . magnificent

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny achieves the ultimate of what a book should do: carry us away into other peoples’ lives, thinking as they think, feeling as they feel, until it comes around and shows us to ourselves. Grand, magnificent, intimate, more than wonderful, this is a novel you will hold close to your heart. I certainly did. I cannot recommend it enough

A novel from Kiran Desai is always going to be an event, but The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny will be seismic, trust me. Brilliant doesn’t begin to describe this novel’s profound illuminative powers

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is both epic and intimate. This is a story of two young people, and a story of families and belonging. That Kiran Desai also finds a way to deftly thread unflinching questions about the imagination and creativity through these immersive pages is brilliant evidence of her formidable and incomparable gifts as a writer. What a magnificent achievement, made all the more rare for its compulsive readability. I could not put this book down

A novel so wonderful, when I got to the last page, I turned to the first and began again

When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated, yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that only served to drive Sonia and Sunny apart. 
 
Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India, fearing she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world. 
 
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.

Kiran Desai

Praise for The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Literary love stories are vanishingly rare these days, and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is that even more precious thing: a love story that's also profound, sparkling, funny, exquisitely written, and tha ...

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a spectacular literary achievement. I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever

I had been dying to read a gorgeously written, sweeping novel like this. Desai’s tale—devastating, lyrical, and deeply romantic—grapples with the complexities of artistic ambition, migration, loss, love, and confron ...

Literary love stories are vanishingly rare these days, and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is that even more precious thing: a love story that's also profound, sparkling, funny, exquisitely written, and tha ...

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a spectacular literary achievement. I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever

I had been dying to read a gorgeously written, sweeping novel like this. Desai’s tale—devastating, lyrical, and deeply romantic—grapples with the complexities of artistic ambition, migration, loss, love, and confron ...

Literary love stories are vanishingly rare these days, and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is that even more precious thing: a love story that's also profound, sparkling, funny, exquisitely written, and tha ...

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a spectacular literary achievement. I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever

I had been dying to read a gorgeously written, sweeping novel like this. Desai’s tale—devastating, lyrical, and deeply romantic—grapples with the complexities of artistic ambition, migration, loss, love, and confron ...

Books by Kiran Desai

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter