A breathtaking debut novel by the author of The Age of Shiva Has sold almost 100,000 copies in the UK and is an international bestseller which has been translated into twenty-two languages Longlisted for the Booker Prize; nominated for the PEN Faulkner Award, LA Times Book Award and WH Smith Book Award; winner of the Barnes & Noble 2001 Discover Great New Writers Award for Fiction

'Beautifully captures with great tenderness and depth the eternal war between duty and desire. This is a love letter to Bombay and its people' Sunday Express 'A magnificent debut, rich with humour, compassion and insight into what it is like to inhabit the melting pot that is contemporary Bombay, rich in celebration of humanity' Scotsman 'A wonder of a book. Astonishing' Amy Tan 'All the elements of great storytelling are here, the mystic transports of Ben Okri with the intimate charm of Arundhati Roy ... enchanting' Sunday Tribune

Manil Suri was born in Bombay in 1959 and is a professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland. His first novel, The Death of Vishnu, was longlisted for the Booker Prize, nominated for the PEN Faulkner Award, the LA Times Book Award and the WH Smith Book Award. It won the Barnes & Noble 2001 Discover Great New Writers Award for Fiction. Manil Suri was an inaugural winner of the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers. He is also the author of The Age of Shiva (Bloomsbury, 2008).