A dazzling, multilayered novel that not only encompasses a searing love story but--with its epic reach from quarks to mythology to geopolitics--also encapsulates the fate of the entire world.
As Mumbai empties under the threat of imminent nuclear annihilation, Sarita, a thirty-three-year-old statistician, can only think of one thing: being reunited with Karun, her physicist husband. Why has he vanished? Who is he running from? How will they form the family of three he's always wanted? To find him, Sarita must journey across the surreal landscape of a near-abandoned city, braving gangs of competing Hindu and Muslim hoodlums. Joining her is Jaz--nominally a Muslim but whose true religion has always been sex with other men. Danger lurks around every corner, but so does the incongruous and the absurd: the patron goddess Devi Ma has even materialized on a beach to save her city from harm. Sarita's search leads her to this beach, thrusting her into a trinity so mercurial, so consuming, that it will alter her life more fundamentally than any apocalypse to come.
Fearlessly provocative, wickedly comedic, and propelled with rocket-fuel energy, The City of Devi exuberantly upends assumptions of politics, religion, sex, and India's global emergence.
About the Author :
Manil Suri's first novel, The Death of Vishnu, won the 2002 Barnes and Noble Discover Prize and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Manil earned his Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University and is now a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He lives in Maryland. Vikas Adam is a classically trained actor who has performed on stage, film, and television. He has also recorded over one hundred audiobooks, for which he has garnered numerous awards and nominations, including Earphones, various Best of the Year lists, and the Audie Award. When not recording, acting, or directing, he can be found lecturing in the Theater Department at UCLA. Priya Ayyar is a renowned audiobook narrator and actress who received her bachelor's degree and master's degree from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She has appeared in notable television shows such as Arrested Development, Nurse Jackie, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. When not narrating, she writes and works in television in California.
Review :
"The City of Devi combines, in a magician's feat, the thrill of Bollywood with the pull of a thriller. Set in a city at the brink of the end, this is a fiercely imagined story of three souls haunted by a love that will change their most elemental ideas of identity. Manil Suri's bravest and most passionate book."
-- "Kiran Desai, Man Booker Prize-winning author "
"Amid the wondrous variety of contemporary Indian fiction, Suri's work stands apart, mingling comedy and death, eroticism and politics, godhood and Bollywood like no one else."
-- "Washington Post"
"By daringly yoking erotic longing with terrorism in a trinitarian tale of amped-up mythology and end-of-world chaos, Suri forges an incendiary love story and provocative improvisation on India's monumental epics."
-- "Booklist"
"Exuberant and sexy...When the world comes to an end, I will spend my last days in Mumbai clutching a copy of Manil Suri's dazzling epic."
-- "Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author"
"Smartly and fluidly written. The strong plot and character development make the novel a page-turner, while insight into the taboos of interfaith and same-gender relationships in India and commentary on what true love really is add substance."
-- "Library Journal"
"The novel is driven by love and hope...Suri's dynamic, unabashed voice leaves one for the most part happily, perpetually off-balance."
-- "Publishers Weekly"
While the explicit sexuality and violence may make some readers uncomfortable, Suri's work is nevertheless smartly and fluidly written. The strong plot and character development make the novel a page-turner, while insight into the taboos of interfaith and same-gender relationships in India and commentary on what true love really is add substance.
-- "Library Journal"
