Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2006. A dense book on the tensions between Western and Eastern values during civil unrest in the foothills of the Himalayas amid a household of lonely souls. Its writing is superb, its plot almost irrelevant and indeed very staccato. Not an easy read but a very rewarding one.
Comparison: Salman Rushdie, John Banville, Hisham Matar.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
| Recommendations: |
Win a Copy of The Sisters of Hope Square by Faith Hogan and a Bucket List Scratch Book
Closing date: 04/07/2026
A BEAUTIFUL TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING MASTERPIECE WITH A NEW PREFACE FROM THE AUTHOR
'A magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and political acuteness' Hermione Lee, chair of the Booker Prize judges
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 orphaned 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.
'Poised, elegant and assured . . . breaks out into extraordinary beauty' The Times
'Affecting and endearing, full of laughter and tears' Boyd Tonkin, Independent
'Briskly paced and sumptuously written . . . ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory' New Yorker
The Inheritance of Loss features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, eBooks of the Month, General Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations
The Inheritance of Loss is available in Paperback, Hardback
The Inheritance of Loss was written by Kiran Desai and published by Penguin Books an imprint of Penguin Books Ltd
The Inheritance of Loss has 324 pages
£8.99
