The City of Devi by Manil Suri audiobook

The City of Devi

By Manil Suri
Read by Vikas Adam and Priya Ayyar

Blackstone Publishing 9780393088755
• 14.30 Hours • • 1
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A dazzling, multilayered novel that not only encompasses a searing love story but—with its epic reach from quarks to mythology to geopolitics—also encapsulates the fate of the entire world. As Mumbai empties under the threat of imminent nuclear annihilation, Sarita, a thirty-three-year-old statistician, can only think of one thing: being reunited with Karun, her physicist husband. Why has he vanished? Who is he running from? How will they form the family of three he's always wanted? To find him, Sarita must journey across the surreal landscape of a near-abandoned city, braving gangs of competing Hindu and Muslim hoodlums. Joining her is Jaz—nominally a Muslim but whose true religion has always been sex with other men. Danger lurks around every corner, but so does the incongruous and the absurd: the patron goddess Devi Ma has even materialized on a beach to save her city from harm. Sarita's search leads her to this beach, thrusting her into a trinity so mercurial, so consuming, that it will alter her life more fundamentally than any apocalypse to come. Fearlessly provocative, wickedly comedic, and propelled with rocket-fuel energy, The City of Devi exuberantly upends assumptions of politics, religion, sex, and India's global emergence.

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Summary

Summary

A 2014 Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Gay General Fiction

A dazzling, multilayered novel that not only encompasses a searing love story but—with its epic reach from quarks to mythology to geopolitics—also encapsulates the fate of the entire world.

As Mumbai empties under the threat of imminent nuclear annihilation, Sarita, a thirty-three-year-old statistician, can only think of one thing: being reunited with Karun, her physicist husband. Why has he vanished? Who is he running from? How will they form the family of three he's always wanted? To find him, Sarita must journey across the surreal landscape of a near-abandoned city, braving gangs of competing Hindu and Muslim hoodlums. Joining her is Jaz—nominally a Muslim but whose true religion has always been sex with other men. Danger lurks around every corner, but so does the incongruous and the absurd: the patron goddess Devi Ma has even materialized on a beach to save her city from harm. Sarita's search leads her to this beach, thrusting her into a trinity so mercurial, so consuming, that it will alter her life more fundamentally than any apocalypse to come.

Fearlessly provocative, wickedly comedic, and propelled with rocket-fuel energy, The City of Devi exuberantly upends assumptions of politics, religion, sex, and India's global emergence.

Editorial Reviews

Editorial Reviews

“Exuberant and sexy…When the world comes to an end, I will spend my last days in Mumbai clutching a copy of Manil Suri’s dazzling epic.” —Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author
“The novel is driven by love and hope…Suri’s dynamic, unabashed voice leaves one for the most part happily, perpetually off-balance.” —Publishers Weekly
“Smartly and fluidly written. The strong plot and character development make the novel a page-turner, while insight into the taboos of interfaith and same-gender relationships in India and commentary on what true love really is add substance.” —Library Journal
“By daringly yoking erotic longing with terrorism in a trinitarian tale of amped-up mythology and end-of-world chaos, Suri forges an incendiary love story and provocative improvisation on India’s monumental epics.” —Booklist
“Amid the wondrous variety of contemporary Indian fiction, Suri’s work stands apart, mingling comedy and death, eroticism and politics, godhood and Bollywood like no one else.” —Washington Post
“The City of Devi combines, in a magician’s feat, the thrill of Bollywood with the pull of a thriller. Set in a city at the brink of the end, this is a fiercely imagined story of three souls haunted by a love that will change their most elemental ideas of identity. Manil Suri’s bravest and most passionate book.” —Kiran Desai, Man Booker Prize–winning author
While the explicit sexuality and violence may make some readers uncomfortable, Suri's work is nevertheless smartly and fluidly written. The strong plot and character development make the novel a page-turner, while insight into the taboos of interfaith and same-gender relationships in India and commentary on what true love really is add substance. —Library Journal
“By daringly yoking erotic longing with terrorism in a trinitarian tale of amped-up mythology and end-of-world chaos, Suri forges an incendiary love story and provocative improvisation on India’s monumental epics.” —Booklist

Reviews

Reviews

by Samuel 9/13/2017
Overall Performance
Narration
Story

Wonderfully narrated novel of a pre/post-apocalyptic India

One of my goals this year was to read more geographically widely, and the latest of Mumbai-born and PEN/Faulkner finalist Suri’s novels set in India delivered on many fronts. It’s a pre- and post-apocalyptic novel in several senses; bombs — and the fear of bombs — are destroying cities, and in the lives of Sarita, her husband Karun, and the mysterious Jaz there are devastated wastelands of the heart as well. It’s a moving novel as Sarita struggles with her physically loveless marriage, she’s brave and fearless and a mover of her own world in her search to be reunited with Karun after the bombs have fallen. Karun’s brilliant mind and will are bent for and against himself. There are twists and turns to this novel, as cults and religions and militias rise up in and against each other along sectarian and other lines, and we see through flashbacks the author’s prismatic glimpses of modern India amidst cultural, economic, and religious changes. Narrators Adam and Ayyar were wonderful; Adam was double cast as both Karun and Jaz and inhabited both with (alternately) self-conflict and self-confidence. The plot marches along by foot, by train, by boat, through violence and fear and colorful characters. Strongly recommended.

Author

Author Bio: Manil Suri

Author Bio: Manil Suri

Manil Suri, a native of Mumbai, is a professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is the author of The Death of Vishnu and the Age of Shiva, and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award.

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Details

Details

Available Formats : Digital Download, Digital Rental, CD, MP3 CD
Category: Fiction
Runtime: 14.30
Audience: Adult
Language: English

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