Kiran Desai - The Inheritance - Booker Price

greenchutney

Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss won the Booker Price yesterday...

woohooo!!!..

shilpaks

whao! anyone read the book already?? how is it?? or is it just hype coz shes anita desai's daughter??
indian authors are being read so much more now than ever before , especially in India itself. This is awesome!

wonderwomanusa

I read the book just last month; it was sad, lovely, and very well written.... especially the bits about being an illegal immigrant in New York City.

I'd also read one other of the books in line for the prize -- THE NIGHT WATCH -- it was also very well done. It would have been hard to vote for the best of those two.

Casey

I am so glad she won this because I heard her being interviewed on the radio here and was intrigued. I caught the name of the book and then forgot it. I have been racking my brain over the past few months to try to remember the author and the title. I knew her mother was famous but now I will be able to run out and get the book. It was a great interview.

shilpaks

am gonna pick up a copy soon then got reading material for my next trip yipeeee!

Casey

I just finished the book and I was a bit disappointed. It may have been that I had great expectations going into it. It is well worth reading, but it isn't something I would highly recommend unless someone was particularly interested in the history of the area. A good book, but not spectacular.

cooksisters

Casey -- I am half way thru the book and to be honest I have read better books by Indian authors. She may have won the booker but she certainly hasn't writeen a book that was head and shoulders above the other nominations. I think it was a case of a compromise candiate winning the prize.

bijapuri

Just finished listening to it on iPod. wonderfully narrated. Prolly going to buy the book, it was that compelling! Agree with WW, the american parts almost stole the show. Definitely one of the great books I have read.

5 stars

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unclelach

Last week the book clubs in my part of town finally freed up a library copy of Desai's novel. At Christmas 2006 it had been my present to a son but I was still waiting to read it myself.

In the meantime I had made a first visit to Darjeeling the nearest large town to Kalimpong the home of the story's main characters.

I was glad to be reminded of Darjeeling places that I had stumbled on during walks eg the Gymkhana Club with unexpectedly a roller skate rink (under repair in 2007).

I was reminded also of the violent political undercurrents that exist in areas of great inequality in both India and Nepal. A tourist like myself is inclined to bypass or be blind to protests or worse although at times of both my visits to Nepal there has been savagery outside the capital and even within sight. For those who haven't read the book, the latter part deals with 1980's Gorkha movement conducted by ethnic Nepalis in the Darjeeling-Kalimpong area.

The descriptions of Darjeeling's exotic hill landscape are accurate and worth a read by anybody who would wish to be reminded.

The characters are memorable but in some cases starkly drawn and detestable. Not a book to put down.