Publisher, Penguin Audiobooks (April 2007)

2006 Man Booker Prize Winner

"Stunning" --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[An] extraordinary new novel....lit by a moral intelligence at once fierce and tender." --Pankaj Mishra, front-cover review in The New York Times Book Review

Desai's first novel, "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard," was published to unanimous acclaim in more than 22 countries. In this 2006 Man Booker Prize winner, Desai takes listeners to the northeastern Himalayas where a rising insurgency challenges the old way of life.

In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga lives an embittered old judge who wants to retire in peace when his orphaned granddaughter Sai arrives on his doorstep. The judge's chatty cook watches over her, but his thoughts are mostly with his son, Biju, hop scotching from one New York restaurant job to another, trying to stay a step ahead of the INS, forced to consider his country's place in the world. When a Nepalese insurgency in the mountains threatens Sai's new-sprung romance with her handsome Nepali tutor and causes their lives to descend into chaos, they, too, are forced to confront their colliding interests. The nation fights itself. The cook witnesses the hierarchy being overturned and discarded. The judge must revisit his past, his own role in this grasping world of conflicting desires-every moment holding out the possibility for hope or betrayal. A novel of depth and emotion, Desai's second, long-awaited novel fulfills the grand promise established by her first.

About the Author: Kiran Desai was born in India and was educated in India, England, and the U.S. She is the author of Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, which garnered unanimous acclaim in over 22 countries.