“Desai’s extraordinary new novel manages to explore, with intimacy and insight . . . lit by a moral intelligence at once fierce and tender. Desai’s prose has uncanny flexibility and poise. She can describe the onset of the monsoon in the Himalayas and a rat in the slums of Manhattan with equal skill. We . . . marvel at Desai’s artistic power.”
—Pankaj Mishra, front cover review in The New York Times Book Review

“[The Inheritance of Loss] is head-turning at the very least thanks to Desai’s pungent descriptions of the highlands’ mouldering beauty and the care she lavishes on her characters’ restless, dissatisfied thoughts.”
—Globe and Mail

“A sprawling and delicate book. . . . Stories radiate from each of these characters . . . each of the threads leading toward a core of love, longing, futility, and loss that is Desai’s true territory. [She] has a touch for alternating humor and impending tragedy that one associates with the greatest writers, and her prose is uncannily beautiful, a perfect balance of lyricism and plain speech.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine

“Briskly paced and sumptuously written, the novel ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory.”
—New Yorker

“An incredibly unromantic vision, and seldom has an author offered so fearless a glimpse into how ordinary lives are caught up in the collision of modernity and cultural tradition.”
—Elle

“The writing has a melancholy beauty, especially in its sensuous evocations of the natural world.”
—The Washington Post

“Desai offers us both comedy and tragedy, poignancy and farce, in a rich and captivating story of love and revolution.”
—The National Post

"Briskly paced and sumptuously written, the novel ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory."
—The New Yorker

“Ricochets between two worlds, held together by Desai’s sharp eyes and even sharper tongue. Desai’s language [is] vivid and wicked. . . . [She has a] keen sense of detail and a fine ear for dialogue. Glorious . . . luminous.”
—Sandip Roy, front cover review in The San Francisco Chronicle

"Wise, insightful and full of wonderfully compelling and conflicted characters. . . . Distinguishes her as a writer of note. . . . Abundant with illuminating detail and potent characters . . . razor insights and emotional scope. . . . The Inheritance of Loss amplifies a developing and formidable voice."
—The Los Angeles Times

"Pleasingly jam-packed with plotlines and rich characters, Desai's tale enthralls."
—People Magazine

“Stunning. . . . Alternately comical and contemplative . . . illuminating the pain of exile, the ambiguities of post-colonialism and the blinding desire for a ‘better life’.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"This book richly fulfills the promise of her first."
—Salman Rushdie

“If god is in the details, Ms. Desai has written a holy book. Page after page, from Harlem to the Himalayas, she captures the terror and exhilaration of being alive in the world.”
—Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan

“Sweet and savoury, sometimes wise and desperately forlorn, this is an engaging second novel from a brave new talent.”
—The Globe and Mail

“The immigrant experience . . . [is] tackled [here] with energy and intelligence. . . . Ms. Desai’s Indian characters are exquisitely particular—funny but never quaint, full of foibles but never reduced by authorial condescension. Bittersweet, entertaining, and just shy of tragic.”
—The Economist

"A magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and powerful political acuteness."
—The Guardian

“The Inheritance of Loss is a magnificent, mature work that reveals how we all try to find our 'own country' wherever it may be. Desai’s genius lies in how she shows us the cost of this journey when we lose our way.”
—The Chronicle Herald (Halifax)

“Vast and vivid, full of tastes and smells, voices and accents, humor and fury. It is a captivating book.”
—The Washington Times

“Desai [has] a love for language that few American writers her age seem able to rival. . . . One of the most impressive novels in English of the past year, and I predict you’ll read it . . . with your heart in your chest, inside the narrative, and the narrative inside you.”
—Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune

"If book reviews just cut to the chase, this one would simply read: This is a terrific novel! Read it! Desai characters are so alive, the places so vivid, that we are always inside their lives. Her insights into human nature, rare for so young a write, juggle timeless wisdom and twenty-first century self-doubt.”
—Ann Harleman, The Boston Globe

“A revelation of the possibilities of the novel. . . . Kiran Desai’s voice is fiercely funny—a humor born out of darkness, the laughter of the dispossessed. It is a remarkable novel because it is rich in that most elusive quality in fiction: wisdom.”
—Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City