If you see Orwell and Kafka together walking down a street, you are in the world of Samrat Upadhyay's Mad Country. The editor of an investigative magazine contends with the trauma of a disappeared colleague, a political tragedy that vies for her attention with a more domestic crisis: a friend who's suicidal over a divorce. An American hippie in Kathmandu in the 1980s undergoes a drastic identity change, only to discover that the metamorphosis brings its own heartbreak. A young man forms a bond with an African woman who has inexplicably appeared on the streets of the city. A wealthy Nepali boy-... continue
Writing of Samrat Upadhyay's story collection, critics raved: "like a Buddhist Chekhov . . . speak s] to common truths . . . startlingly good" (San Francisco Chronicle) and "subtle and spiritually complex" (New York Times). Upadhyay's novel showcases his finest writing and his signature themes. The Guru of Love is a moving and important story--important for what it illuminates about the human need to love as well as lust, and for the light it shines on the political situation in Nepal and elsewhere. Ramchandra is a math teacher earning a low wage and living in a small apartment with his wife a... continue