Description: As Mumbai empties under the threat of imminent nuclearannihilation, statistician Sarita can only think of being reunited with herphysicist husband. To find him, she must journey across the surreal landscapeof a near-abandoned city, braving gangs of competing Hindu and Muslim hoodlums.Joining her is Jaza Muslim whose true religion has always been sex. Dangerlurks around every corner, but so does the absurd: the patron goddess Devi Mahas even materialized on a beach to save her city. Sarita's search leads her tothis beach, thrusting her into a trinity so mercurial, so consuming, that itwill alter her life more fundamentally than any apocalypse.
Brief description: Manil Suri's first novel, The Death of Vishnu, won the 2002 Barnes and Noble Discover Prize and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Manil earned his Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University and is now a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He lives in Maryland.
Review Quotes:
"Amid the wondrous variety of contemporary Indian fiction, Suri's work stands apart, mingling comedy and death, eroticism and politics, godhood and Bollywood like no one else."
-- "Washington Post"