An epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Inheritance of Loss
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.
About the Author
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.
Industry Reviews
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a spectacular literary achievement. I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever
Ann Patchett
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
Hisham Matar
A powerful novel by a writer strong enough to pull back together worlds that are being pulled apart
Mohsin Hamid
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
Junot Díaz
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
Maaza Mengiste
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
Kirkus (starred review)
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
Andrew Sean Greer
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
Khaled Hosseini
