Brought to you by Penguin.

A TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF THE BOOKER PRIZE-WINNING MASTERPIECE WITH A NEW PREFACE FROM THE AUTHOR

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.

‘A magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and political acuteness’ Hermione Lee, chair of the Booker Prize judges

‘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

© Kiran Desai 2006 (P) Penguin Audio 2026