Red Earth and Pouring Rain
Page 63
—Michael Frank, Los Angeles Times
“A considerable accomplishment… . Mr. Chandra marries his storytelling prowess to a profound understanding of India’s ageless and ever-changing society… . At the core of the book are two novellas of rare narrative strength.”
—Shashi Tharoor, New York Times Book Review
“Chandra’s gift is the elaborate, pleasurable narrative line, the sort of fiction you could stay up and read all night.”
—John Sutherland, Seattle Times
“At the heart of each story is a mystery that keeps you reading… . Chandra is a storyteller of the grand old school.”
—Chitra Banerjee Divakurini, San Francisco Chronicle
“Displays as light a satirical touch as if it were Edith Wharton let loose on Malabar Hill, the Great Neck of Bombay… . Chandra knows how to catch a whole era of expectation and loss in a single phrase.”
—John Weir, Newsday
“Breathtaking… . When Midnight’s Children first appeared on the scene, it became necessary to reevaluate stories from and about India. With Vikram Chandra’s collection —his second book —it is time to take stock again.”
—Farrukh Dhondy, The Observer (London)
“Wonderfully complex and entertaining… . A delight to read. This collection reminds one of the fundamental pleasures of fiction: the enjoyment of surrendering to the engaging imagination of a superior writer.”
—Mark Bautz, Washington Times
Greeted with thunderous critical acclaim throughout the world, Vikram Chandra’s extraordinary first novel brings to life the epic sweep of India’s history —and a memorable road trip across modern America.
The New York Times Book Review described it as “huge, magical, cinematic,” and critics around the world proclaimed it the year’s most astonishing debut. Vikram Chandra’s Red Earth and Pouring Rain is an unforgettable reading experience, a contemporary Thousand and One Nights —with an eighteenth-century warrior-poet (now reincarnated as a typewriting monkey) and an Indian student home from college in America switching off as our Scheherazades: Ranging from bloody battles in colonial India to college anomie in California, from Hindu gods to MTV, Chandra’s novel is engrossing, enthralling, impossible to put down —a remarkable meditation on quests and homecomings, good and evil, storytelling and redemption.
“A dazzling feat of imagination, technique, and wordplay.” —Entertainment Weekly
WINNER OF THE DAVID HIGHAM PRIZE FOR FICTION AND THE COMMONWEALTH WRITERS PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST PUBLISHED BOOK
Vikram Chandra is also the author of Love and Longing in Bombay. He lives in Washington, D.C., where he is a visiting professor of English at George Washington University. He can be reached by E-mail at vchandra@mindspring.com.