Kiran Desai · 2006 · exile

Kiran Desai's 2006 Booker winner. In a crumbling house below Kanchenjunga in Kalimpong, an embittered retired judge lives with his orphaned granddaughter Sai and his cook, as a Nepali insurgency rises in the hills. Across the world the cook's son Biju drifts through the basement kitchens of New York as an illegal immigrant - two Indias, the mountain and the exile, mirrored across the globe.

1. 1
   Kalimpong

   The hill town below Kanchenjunga where the retired judge, his granddaughter Sai and the cook live in a decaying house, as Gorkha insurgency unrest closes in around them.

2. 2
   Kanchenjunga

   The great Himalayan peak looming over the story, its beauty set against the poverty, colonial hangover and ethnic violence unfolding in the hills below.

3. 3
   New York

   The basement restaurant kitchens where the cook's son Biju scrapes by as an undocumented immigrant, chasing an American dream that only deepens his exile.