The City of Devi
By Manil Suri
Read by Vikas Adam and Priya Ayyar
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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
Reviews
Reviews
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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.
Details
Details
Available Formats : | Digital Download, Digital Rental, CD, MP3 CD |
Category: | Fiction |
Runtime: | 14.30 |
Audience: | Adult |
Language: | English |
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