The Ever After of Ashwin Rao - Softcover

Viswanathan, Padma

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0307356353 ISBN 13: 9780307356352

Publisher: Vintage Canada, 2015

Synopsis

A national bestseller and finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, The Ever After of Ashwin Rao is a stunning new work set among families of those who lost loved ones in the 1985 Air India bombing, registering the unexpected reverberations of this tragedy in the lives of its survivors.
In 2004, almost 20 years after the fatal bombing of an Air India flight from Vancouver that killed 329, two suspects --finally--are on trial for the crime. Ashwin Rao, an Indian psychologist trained in Canada, comes back to do a "study of comparative grief," interviewing people who lost loved ones in the attack. What he neglects to mention is that he, too, had family members who died on the plane. Then, to his delight and fear, he becomes embroiled in the lives of one family caught in the undertow of the tragedy, and privy to their secrets. This surprising emotional connection sparks him to confront his own losses. A book of post-9/11 Canada, The Ever After of Ashwin Rao imagines the lasting emotional and political consequences of a real-life act of terror, confronting what we might learn to live with and what we can live without.

About this title

Review

"This often droll, fiercely intelligent novel with its cat's-cradle of a plot challenges the twin deadly lures of religious fundamentalism and racism, revealing the learning and unlearning at the core of the immigrant experience." Scotiabank Giller Prize jury citation
"Provocative and compelling." Chatelaine
"This book illuminates the national tragedy of Flight 182 and the ways in which loss change family landscapes." Toronto Star
"More than a memorial to the victims and the bereaved, The Ever After of Ashwin Rao charts how people navigate their anguish." The Georgia Straight
"An important book--one that deserves to find international recognition. Pondering our unexamined prejudices might be deeply uncomfortable but it is absolutely necessary." The Globe and Mail

About the Author

PADMA VISWANATHAN is a Canadian writer, playwright and journalist, whose debut novel, The Toss of a Lemon, was shortlisted for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Writer's Prize Best First Book Award (Canada and the Caribbean) and the PEN USA Fiction Award, and published to international acclaim. Her work has received many awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and support from the Canada Council, as well as residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Banff Centre and the Sacatar Foundation. Her hometown is Edmonton, Alberta, though she is presently living with her husband, Geoffrey Brock, a poet and translator, and their 2 children in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Canada
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0307356353
• ISBN 13: 9780307356352
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384