Buddha's Orphans
Books / Hardcover
Books › Fiction › Cultural Heritage
ISBN: 0618517502 / Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, July 2010
Raja and Nilu are fated to fall in love. Follow their story across the globe and through generations to see if, perhaps, old bends in a family tree may be righted in future branches.
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"Buddha's Orphans is an extraordinary achievement. It has the sweep and romantic grandeur of a great old-fashioned Russian novel and, at the same time, the precision and intimacy of a beautiful collection of linked stories. Samrat Upadhyay has created a remarkable work, one to be savored and remembered."-Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply"In this novel, Upadhyay has masterfully blended history, tragedy, politics and romance to create the arresting story of a family that is at once unique and universal, set against the backdrop of a vibrant, complicated, modern Nepal that will fascinate readers."-Chitra Divakaruni, author of One Amazing Thing and The Palace of Illusions"Upadhyay's Kathmandu is as specific and heartfelt as Joyce's Dublin."-San Francisco Chronicle"[Upadhyay's] characters linger. They are captured with such concise, illuminating precision that one begins to feel that they just might be real."ù Christian Science Monitor"Upadhyay...illuminat [es] the shadow corners of his characters' psyches, as well as the complex social and political realities of life in Nepal, with equal grace."-ElleRaja and Nilu are fated to fall in love.They have both been abandonedùhe through his mother's suicide in the public pond, she through her mother's constant escape into drink. He has grown up on the streets, she in a crumbling mansion. And yet, they find each other, again and again. First, when they are children, then, when they are young lovers, and, finally, after they both fear they have lost their marriage. But the events of the past, even those we are ignorant of, inevitably haunt the present. And Raja and Nilu's story is not only their own.Buddha's Orphans traces the roots of this love story and follows its growthùthrough time, across the globe, through the loss of and search for children, and through several generations, hinting that perhaps old bends can, in fact, be righted in future branches of a family tree.Using Nepal's political upheavals as a backdrop to demonstrate how we are irreparably connected to past and home, Buddha's Orphans is an engrossing, unconventional love story, a seductive, transporting read, and further evidence that Samrat Upadhyay is one of our finest writers, thoroughly deserving of his acclaim as "a Buddhist Chekhov" and comparisons to Amitav Ghosh, William Trevor and Jhumpa Lahiri.
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