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This stunning second novel from Desai (Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard) is set in mid-1980s India, on the cusp of the Nepalese movement for an independent state. Jemubhai Popatlal, a retired Cambridge-educated judge, lives in Kalimpong, at the foot of the Himalayas, with his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and his cook. The makeshift family's neighbors include a coterie of Anglophiles who might be savvy readers of V.S. Naipaul but who are, perhaps, less aware of how fragile their own social standing is-at least until a surge of unrest disturbs the region. Jemubhai, with his hunting rifles and English biscuits, becomes an obvious target. Besides threatening their very lives, the revolution also stymies the fledgling romance between 16-year-old Sai and her Nepalese tutor, Gyan. The cook's son, Biju, meanwhile, lives miserably as an illegal alien in New York. All of these characters struggle with their cultural identity and the forces of modernization while trying to maintain their emotional connection to one another. In this alternately comical and contemplative novel, Desai deftly shuttles between first and third worlds, illuminating the pain of exile, the ambiguities of post-colonialism and the blinding desire for a "better life," when one person's wealth means another's poverty.
《失落的遺傳》是德塞的第二本小說，描寫后殖民時(shí)期的印度及同時(shí)代的美國。作品主要以持過期簽證在美國逗留的非法印度移民的角度進(jìn)行敘述。包括了一位在英國殖民法規(guī)下幸存的老法官、其忠誠的廚子及廚子在紐約打拼的兒子的生活群像。
About Author
Kiran Desai was born in India in 1971, and was educated in India, in England, and the United States. Kiran studied creative writing at Columbia University. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and The Inheritance of Loss.
Kiran Desai was named the winner of the ￡50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction with The Inheritance of Loss, published by Hamish Hamilton.
出生于印度的35歲女作家姬蘭·德賽（Kiran Desai）是布克獎有史以來最年輕的大獎得主，獲得了5萬英鎊的獎金。德賽的獲獎作品是其第二部小說《失落的遺產(chǎn)》。她的媽媽安妮塔（Anita Desai）也是成就斐然的作家，曾先后三次進(jìn)入布克獎決選。
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