The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai

The Basics: The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai, 2006, 324 pages, paperback, winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize.

How I found it: Random browsing at Chapters.

What's it about?: A retired judge and his granddaughter living in the Himalaya during a Nepali insurgency. Although the judge, his granddaughter, and most of the their friends are Indians, they still feel very connected to colonial British customs and disconnected to the new idea of a multi-ethnic India where Nepalis can demand rights. The book is very character focused and the building insurgency only occurs in the background.

Did I like it?: I found this book really, really slow. I did not relate to any of the characters and found a few of them quite tedious. Sadly, there wasn't much I liked about this book at all, despite the fact that it was written well.

Will you like it?: Well, it won the Booker prize, which means that some people liked it, and it is good literature, but in this case, I don't think it makes for a good read.

But don't take my word for it: The usual professional and reader reviews from amazon, one from the New York Times, another from the BBC, one from The Hindu (an national Indian newspaper), one from the online DesiLit Daily, and finally one from the Accidental Blogger.