Published to extraordinary acclaim, The Inheritance of Loss heralds Kiran Desai as one of our most insightful novelists. She illuminates the pain of exile and the ambiguities of postcolonialism with a tapestry of colorful characters: an embittered old judge; Sai, his sixteen-year-old orphaned grand-daughter; a chatty cook; and the cook's son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one miserable New York restaurant to another, trying to stay a step ahead of the INS.When a Nepalese insurgency in the mountains threatens Sai's new-sprung romance with her handsome tutor, their lives descend into chaos. The cook wit-nesses India's hierarchy being overturned and discarded. The judge revisits his past and his role in Sai and Biju's intertwining lives. A story of depth and emotion, hilarity and imagination, The Inheritance of Loss tells "of love, longing, futility, and loss that is Desai's true territory" (O: The Oprah Magazine).