HULLABALOO IN THE GUAVA ORCHARD - Scarce Fine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Signed by Kiran Desai - SIGNED ON THE TITLE PAGE

Desai, Kiran

ISBN 10: 0871137119 / ISBN 13: 9780871137111

Published by New York City, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998, 1998

About this Item

1st Printing. Signed. 209 pages. Published in 1998. The author's debut novel. Now considered a contemporary classic. The first appearance of the title in the United States. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The DJ design by Charles Rue Woods is splendid, utilizing an adaptation of traditional Indian figurative art by John Martinez. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Kiran Desai's "Hullabaloo In The Guava Orchard". An unqualified pleasure. "A wild, sad, humorous story about the oldest son of an eccentric family in a small Indian village. Born at the moment a crash of thunder signals the end of a long, hot drought, Sampath grows into a disappointing young man. After he loses a job, Sampath's mother attempts to comfort him with a guava, but it explodes as Sampath is admiring its green coolness, compelling him to flee his family and village to an abandoned orchard, climb into a guava tree, and stay there" (Library Journal). "Lush and intricately imagined" (Salman Rushdie). Critical praise deemed Desai's beautifully written first outing worthy of comparison with the work of such giants as Salman Rushdie, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and Shashi Tharoor. If her name rings a bell, it's because it does: Kiran is the daughter of Anita Desai. An absolute "must-have" title for Kiran Desai collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in blue ink-pen on the title page by Kiran Desai. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. Laid-in is a pristine copy of the Souvenir Announcement of the event during which her signature was obtained. This title is a contemporary classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing (American) still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have all kinds of inexplicable flaws for a relatively new book: Creasing, soiling, tears, bumps, you name it even if the dealers themselves do not. Yet they are priced as though they had collectible value. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the Booker Prize in 2006 and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2007 for "The Inheritance of Loss". One of the most brilliant writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER KIRAN DESAI TITLES IN OUR CATALOG) ISBN 0871137119.

Seller Inventory # 20625

Bibliographic Details

• Title: HULLABALOO IN THE GUAVA ORCHARD - Scarce Fine Copy of The First Hardcover Edition/First Printing: Signed by Kiran Desai - SIGNED ON THE TITLE PAGE
• Publisher: New York City, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998
• Publication Date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0871137119
• ISBN 13: 9780871137111
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author

About this title

Synopsis

A debut novel tells the story of young Sampath Chawla, a postal worker who never feels as though he fits into the small Indian town into which he is born, and one day climbs up a tree, only to become a famous holy man. 50,000 first printing. Tour.

Review

Born during a torrential rainstorm, in Shahkot, India, to a mother whom the neighbours find distinctly odd, Sampath Chawla is a disappointment to his family. Nothing but trouble from the start, he disgraces himself at a wedding party, loses his job at the local post office and runs away from home to take refuge in the guava orchard, at the top of a guava tree. There he is mistaken for a holy man and seer when he reveals intimate secrets about the local inhabitants (gleaned from reading their mail in idle moments at the post office). His father can see there is money, at last, to be made from his idle son and sets about doing so with determination. A local journalist, however, is equally determined to unmask him. Although Desai writes with considerable flair, employing an inventive style of English reminiscent of a line of Indian authors from Salman Rushdie to Arundhati Roy, there is something tiresome about this relentlessly perky comedy, and one has a slight suspicion that the European reader is being hoodwinked with fashionable pastiche. Midnight's Children has a lot to answer for. --Lisa Jardine