The Guru of Love
A Novel
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Notable Book: “A ravishingly seductive novel . . . set in contemporary Kathmandu” (Elle).
Ramchandra is a math teacher earning a low wage and living in a small apartment with his wife and two children. Moonlighting as a tutor, he engages in an illicit affair with one of his tutees, Malati, a beautiful, impoverished teenager, who is also a new mother. She provides for him what his wife, who comes from a privileged background, does not: desire, mystery, and a simpler life.
Just as this Nepalese city struggles with the conflicts of change, Ramchandra must also learn to accommodate both tradition and his very modern desires, in this “gripping” novel by the Whiting Award–winning author of Buddha’s Orphans (The New York Times Book Review).
“Utterly absorbing . . . Upadhyay’s lucent and tender storytelling gently unveils the strange interplay between self and family, the private and the political, and most mysteriously, the erotic and the spiritual.” —Booklist
“Poignant . . . The Guru of Love effectively weaves together the complicated dichotomies of man and mistress, love and lust, tradition and modernity.” —USA Today
“Reads like a graceful, page-turning mixture of stirring romance and social commentary.” —Entertainment Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"The days crept on, and Goma and the children didn't come home. He felt their absence in his bones, his chest, the membranes of his throat so that at times it was difficult for him to speak." Yet Ramchandra, a math teacher in 1990s Nepal, is responsible for their absence. He has become infatuated with one of his tutees, 15-year-old single mother Malati. Unable to endure his obsession, his wife, Goma, has fled to her parents' home with pubescent Sanu and her younger brother, Rakesh. But nothing neither infidelity nor her rich parents' scorn for a son-in-law who can barely afford a dilapidated apartment with outdoor plumbing diminishes Goma's love for Ramchandra. Eventually, she returns home with the brilliant proviso that Malati and her infant move in as well, sleeping in the master bedroom with Ramchandra. Set in Kathmandu against a background of political upheaval, Upadhyay's debut novel (following the acclaimed short story collection Arresting God in Kathmandu) is stunning in its simplicity and emotional resonance. The language captivates the reader with its singular, intimate weave of English and Nepali. One experiences this book as Ramchandra experiences his life: not at a reflective distance but swept away by it. The background, too, is vivid: the social fabric of Kathmandu, particularly the turmoil of the pro-democracy movement and the growing urbanization of an ancient city, is conveyed with detailed realism. Upadhyay, who left Kathmandu for the U.S. at 21 and teaches in Cleveland, reminds us that stories grounded in a specific place and time are the most universal. The Nepali heart is the human heart. Goma, Ramchandra, Malati, the children and the beautifully drawn minor characters are at once themselves and all of us.
