Set in the sleepy sea side town of Gopalpur-on-Sea on the East Coast of India, this is the story of the mock-colonial world of the Coromandel Villa Hotel, whose owner, Arjun Roy tried to escape from the urban life of Calcutta, and his girl Friday Jennifer Da Costa. The story goes back in time and place to trace the early childhood years of Arjun and his beautiful older sister Bula, as well as the unhappy past of Jennifer in Calcutta.It is also the story of Shanti the demented beggar girl who ...

After the release of Anita Rau Badami's critically acclaimed first novel, Tamarind Mem, it was evident a promising new talent had joined the Canadian literary community. Her dazzling literary follow-up is The Hero's Walk, a novel teeming with the author's trademark tumble of the haphazard beauty, wreckage and folly of ordinary lives. Set in the dusty seaside town of Toturpuram on the Bay of Bengal, The Hero's Walk traces the terrain of family and forgiveness thro...

As the first girl born to the Nachimada family in over 60 years, the beautiful Devi is the object of adoration of her entire family. Strong-willed and confident, she befriends the shy Devanna, a young boy whose mother has died under tragic circumstances. The two quickly become inseparable, until Devi meets Machu the tiger killer, a hunter of great repute and a man of much honour and pride. Soon they fall deeply in love, an attraction that drives a wedge between Devi and Devanna. It is this...

“This is why we read fiction at all” raves the Washington Post: Family life meets historical romance in this critically acclaimed, “gorgeous, sweeping novel” (Ms Magazine) about two people who find each other when abandoned by everyone else, marking the signal American debut of an award-winning writer who richly deserves her international acclaim.On the outskirts of a small town in Bengal, a family lives in solitude in their vast new house. Here, ...

Acclaimed as one of the funniest and true to life stories about India ever written, this 'diary of disaster' was an instant bestseller upon publication in 1986 and remains a firm favourite with readers today."Relentlessly honest, refreshingly uncontrived, this diary really works." (The Sunday Tribune)"India, at low-budget tourist level, is buffeting and bullying. But over four months travelling, Frank Kusy remains indefatigably and irrepressibly

A beautiful and brilliant portrait of two generations of women. Set in India’s railway colonies, this is the story of Kamini and her mother Saroja, nicknamed Tamarind Mem due to her sour tongue. While in Canada beginning her graduate studies, Kamini receives a postcard from her mother saying she has sold their home and is travelling through India. Both are forced into the past to confront their dreams and losses and to explore the love that binds mothers and daughters everywhere.

Winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for her second novel The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai is one of the most talented writers of her generation. Now available for the first time as a Grove Press paperback, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard—Desai’s dazzling debut novel—is a wryly hilarious and poignant story that simultaneously captures the vivid culture of the Indian subcontinent and the universal intricacie...

A tremendous first novel from an exciting young author.Feted for its electric chaos, the city of Bombay also accommodates pockets of calm. In one such enclave, Mohan, a middle-aged letter writer – the last of a dying profession – sits under a banyan tree in Fort, furnishing missives for village migrants, disenchanted lovers, and when pickings are slim, filling in money order forms. But Mohan's true passion is collecting second-hand books; he's particularly attached to novels with m...

The future is here. India has just sent its first spacecraft to the moon, and the placid city of Mysore is gearing up for its own global recognition with the construction of HeritageLand - Asia’s largest theme park. From behind the formidable gates of Mahalakshmi Gardens to the shanty houses on the edge of town, the people of Mysore are abuzz as they watch their city prepare for a complete transformation. Susheela, an elderly widow, is forced into a secretive new life. Uma, trying to escap...

Mr Fernando led me into a dark room that was lined with book-cases and smelled of leather and damp. The polished, concrete floor of the library was covered with white jasmine flowers that had blown through the windows during the storm. He began to select from the shelves a collection of disintegrating books. ‘If you are going to read any of them, it should really be this one,’ he said as he passed me two thick volumes, embossed with gold lettering and spotted with damp. The work was simply...

It's not easy landing unprepared in a country like Japan. The eccentricities of the calendar, the indecipherable postal system, not to mention the alien alphabet, language and culture, have all to be confronted before the disorientated traveller can feel at ease. Trying to ride a bicycle through the streets of one of the most congested cities in the world would seem to compound your problems. For Josie Dew, however, with over 200,000 miles already clocked up in the saddle few things could ...

This vivid and haunting short-story collection flows smoothly together to create a masterful portrait of contemporary Sri Lanka; a country of teeming natural beauty, with a society in turmoil. A married couple, living in London, find their marriage strained by fighting in their far-off homeland. A man mourns his brother's death. A woman regrets the lover she left behind. Between exile and loss, Gunesekera's characters struggle for the elusive and divided place that they call home. Re-print...