The Inheritance of Loss is Kiran Desai's extraordinary Man Booker Prize winning novel High in the Himalayas sits a dilapidated mansion home to three people each dreaming of another time The judge broken by a world too messy for justice is haunted by his past His orphan granddaughter has fallen in love with her handsome tutor despite their different backgrounds & ideals The cook's heart is with his son who is working in a New York restaurant mingling with an underclass from all over the globe as he seeks somewhere to call home Around the house swirl the forces of revolution & change Civil unrest is making itself felt stirring up inner conflicts as powerful as those dividing the community pitting the past against the present nationalism against love a small place against the troubles of a big world 'A Magnificent novel of humane breadth & wisdom comic tenderness & political acuteness' Hermione Lee chair of the Man Booker Prize judges' Poised elegant & assured breaks out into extraordinary beauty' The Times' Desai's bold original voice & her ability to deal in a grand narratives with a deft comic touch that affectionately recalls some of the masters of Indian fiction makes hers a novel to reread & remembered' Independent Kiran Desai was born in India in 1971 was educated in India England & the United States & now lives in New York She is the author of Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard which was published to unanimous acclaim in over twenty-two countries & The Inheritance of Loss which won the Man Book Prize for Fiction & the National Book Critics Circle Award was shortlisted for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction