A Life of Adventure and Delight - Softcover

Sharma, Akhil

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393355896 ISBN 13: 9780393355895

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018

Synopsis

Hailed as a storyteller whose fiction is "a glowing work of art" (Wall Street Journal), Akhil Sharma is possessed of a narrative voice "as hypnotic as those found in the pages of Dostoyevsky" (The Nation). In A Life of Adventure and Delight, Sharma delivers eight masterful stories that focus on Indian protagonists at home and abroad and that plunge the reader into the unpredictable workings of the human heart. A young woman in an arranged marriage awakens one day surprised to find herself in love with her husband. A retired divorce tries to become the perfect partner by reading women's magazines. A man's longstanding contempt for his cousin suddenly shifts inward when he witnesses his cousin caring for a sick woman. Tender and darkly comic, the protagonists in A Life of Adventure and Delight deceive themselves and engage in odd behaviors as they navigate how to be good, how to make meaningful relationships, and the strengths and pitfalls of self-interest. Elegantly written and emotionally immediate, the stories provide an intimate, honest assessment of human relationships between mothers and sons, sons and lovers, and husband and wives from a dazzlingly original, critically acclaimed writer.

About this title

Review

What an exciting and original writer this is, and what a knock-out collection.--David Sedaris, best-selling author of Naked

Those seeking quiet moments of revelation will find them here.

A melancholy and at turns tender exploration of the human psyche at its most vulnerable.

Readers wade into these stories as though stepping into a calm river only to be caught by an undercurrent of the most devastating kind--the demand of everyday existence. Akhil Sharma's words touch the deep experience that often remains wordless. He is truly the Chekhov of our time.--Yiyun Li, author of Gold Boy, Emerald Girl and The Vagrants

[Sharma's] stories are beautiful, deceptively simple, and potentially dangerous.--Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer

These stories have a psychological acuity that redeems their dark worldview.

If you love short story collections, this one's for you.... Author Akhil Sharma's characters aren't perfect--they wrestle with belonging, tradition, and temptation--but they're heartbreakingly real and relatable, even at their worst.

About the Author

Akhil Sharma is the author of Family Life, a New York Times Best Book of the Year and the winner of the International DUBLIN LiteraryAward and the Folio Prize. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Best American Short Stories, and O. Henry Award Stories. A native of Delhi, he lives in New York City and teaches English at Rutgers University-Newark.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0393355896
• ISBN 13: 9780393355895
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208