The Smile of the Bougainvillea
Language: English
Published by Infinidatum LLC, 2026
- Softcover
- New
Seller: California Books, Miami, FL, U.S.A.California Books
AbeBooks seller since October 27, 2023
Condition: New
£ 15.56
Quantity: Over 20 available
Add to basketSeller Inventory # I-9798993523255
- Title
- The Smile of the Bougainvillea
- Author
- R, Durai
- Publisher
- Infinidatum LLC
- Publication year
- 2026
- Condition
- New
- Binding
- Soft cover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 13
- 9798993523255
A quiet, devastating novel about migration, marriage, and the choices that shape a life.
The Smile of the Bougainvillea follows Dev, an immigrant who builds a stable life across continents—Neyveli, Chennai, Dubai, London—while slowly drifting away from the people closest to him. Through therapy sessions and fragmented memories, Dev begins to see what he once avoided: how small, reasonable decisions—postponed conversations, missed moments, unexamined compromises—accumulate into irreversible loss.
This is not a story of dramatic collapse. It is a novel about the middle years: marriages that erode quietly, children who learn early what absence feels like, and ambitions that provide security while demanding emotional distance in return.
Told with restraint and psychological precision, the novel examines:
-
how migration reshapes identity and intimacy
-
how professional success can coexist with private disappearance
-
how love fades not through cruelty, but through neglect
-
how people become strangers to the lives they once imagined
Framed through therapy rather than chronology, Dev’s recollections are partial and reflective, attentive to what was said, what was done, and what remained unspoken. The result is a deeply human portrait of adulthood lived provisionally—stable on the surface, fragile underneath.
This is literary fiction for readers who value emotional realism, quiet tension, and moral complexity over spectacle.
Perfect for readers of:
-
introspective literary fiction
-
novels about migration, identity, and marriage
-
character-driven stories about family and responsibility
-
books that linger long after the final page
If you’ve ever wondered how a life can look complete while slowly coming undone, The Smile of the Bougainvillea is for you.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Durai R is a novelist concerned with movement, restraint, and the cost of
becoming. Born in Tamil Nadu, India, he writes fiction that explores the emotional and physical spaces people traverse without fully inhabiting.
His debut novel, The Smile of the Bougainvillea, examines immigration not as adventure but as a slow erasure, marriage as a practical choice, and ambition as a form of evasion. His work examines lives shaped by decision rather than destiny, in people who spend years moving toward something they can't name while running from what they refuse to face.
He writes about diaspora, arranged marriage, visa constraints, and the
psychological terrain of displacement-subjects he approaches with restraint, precision, and an eye for what people don't say.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
California Books
Miami, FL, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since October 27, 2023
Shipping rates within U.S.A.
| Item | 3 to 7 business days | 2 to 5 business days |
|---|---|---|
| First item | £ 0.00 | £ 9.06 |
Payment methods
Store description
We have 20 years experience selling books worldwide! Friendly customer support. Your satisfaction guaranteed!
Specialty
All authorized categoriesSeller's business information
Miramar International Services LLC
FL, U.S.A.
Right of withdrawal
If you are a consumer you can withdraw from the contract in accordance with the following. Consumer means any natural person who is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business, craft or profession.
Information regarding the right of withdrawal
Statutory right to withdraw
You have the right to withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving any reason.
The withdrawal period will expire after 14 days from the day on which you acquire, or a third party other than the carrier and indicated by you acquires, physical possession of the last good or the last lot or piece.
To exercise the right of withdrawal, electronically fill in and submit a clear statement on our website, under "My Purchases" in "My Account". We will communicate to you an acknowledgement of receipt of such a withdrawal on a durable medium (e.g. by e-mail) without delay.
To meet the withdrawal deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right of withdrawal before the withdrawal period has expired.
Effects of withdrawal
If you withdraw from this contract, we will reimburse to you all payments received from you, including the costs of delivery (except for the supplementary costs arising if you chose a type of delivery other than the least expensive type of standard delivery offered by us).
We may make a deduction from the reimbursement for loss in value of any goods supplied, if the loss is the result of unnecessary handling by you.
We will make the reimbursement without undue delay, and not later than 14 days after the day on which we are informed about your decision to withdraw from this contract.
We will make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of such reimbursement.
We may withhold reimbursement until we have received the goods back, or you have supplied evidence of having sent back the goods, whichever is the earliest.
You shall send back the goods or hand them over to California Books, Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A., without undue delay and in any event not later than 14 days from the day on which you communicate your withdrawal from this contract to us. The deadline is met if you send back the goods before the period of 14 days has expired. You will have to bear the direct cost of returning the goods. You are only liable for any diminished value of the goods resulting from the handling other than what is necessary to establish the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods.
Exceptions to the right of withdrawal
The right of withdrawal does not apply to:
- The delivery of newspapers, journals or magazines with the exception of subscription contracts; and
- The supply of digital content which is not supplied on a tangible medium (e.g. on a CD or DVD) if you accepted when you placed your order that we could start to deliver it, and that you could not withdraw once delivery had started.