The City of Devi
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- 9,99 €
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- 9,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
A dystopia like no other, Manil Suri paints a vibrant portrait of an India on the brink of collapse, two figures travelling across the unknown in a world scarily close to the modern day
'This vividly imagined book about personal and national destruction – and the possibilities of salvation – lingers long after the final page, showing how it is loss that teaches the value of what is most loved' Anita Sethi, Independent
'Consuming, passionate, and ultimately poignant' Guardian
Armed only with a pomegranate, Sarita ventures into the empty streets of Mumbai, on the eve of its threatened nuclear annihilation. She is looking for her physicist husband Karun, who has been missing for over a fortnight.
She is soon joined on her quest by Jaz - cocky, handsome, Muslim, gay, and in search of his own lover. Together they traverse the surreal landscape of a dystopia rife with absurdity, and are inexorably drawn to the patron goddess Devi ma, the supposed saviour of the city.
Groundbreaking and multilayered, The City of Devi is a fearlessly provocative tale of three individuals balancing on the sharp edge of fate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This novel from Suri (The Death of Vishnu) shows India and, peripherally, the rest of the world, teetering on the edge of disaster. His plot draws out, through slight exaggerations and extrapolations, dangerous trends overtaking modern society: the world going down in a mess of disruptive hackings, nuclear threats, and religious strife. But the novel is driven by love and hope; Sarita, recently married, is desperate to find her husband, Karun, before the promised nuclear holocaust some days hence. She sets out from Mumbai toward the suburb where he went before the worst of the violence began. On her way she encounters militant Hindu and Muslim groups, a fantastical cult that worships a would-be deity name Devi, and a Muslim man named Jaz whose attentions she can't seem to shake. He joins her quest for reasons of his own, and each recalls along the way the intertwined pasts that have brought them together and set them on this journey. Suri's dynamic, unabashed voice leaves one for the most part happily, perpetually off-balance and, though the tone is too unbound at times especially toward the rather crazed ending the vibrancy and compelling plot carry through the occasional sag or inconsistency.
