66 pages • 2 hours read
The Inheritance of Loss
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Summary and Study Guide
Overview
The Inheritance of Loss, a 2006 book by Kiran Desai, explores immigration, identity, and relationships on both the interpersonal and international scale. Spanning India, England, and the United States, the novel details the conflict between traditional Indian ways of life and the shiny opulence of Western nations. The book won several awards, including the Man Booker Prize in 2006 and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 2007. Desai wrote the book in the seven years following her 1998 debut, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard.
Plot Summary
The Inheritance of Loss follows four characters from a household in Northern India. The house is Cho Oyu—a stately manor in the village of Kalimpong—which is home to the judge, his granddaughter Sai, and the cook. The cook’s son Biju, meanwhile, lives in New York City. Each chapter focuses on a primary point-of-view character to anchor this wide-reaching narrative that spans decades and nations.
The novel begins at Cho Oyu in 1986. A group of Nepali-Indian insurgents robs the judge’s guns from the house, humiliating the proud old man. Many of the judge’s chapters track his rise from peasant to judge for the Indian Civil Service.
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