Ajay n'a pas dix ans lorsque sa famille quitte l'Inde pour s'installer aux États-Unis. Lui et son grand frère Birju découvrent émerveillés ce pays plein de promesses. Mais un drame va bouleverser toute la famille. Alors que Birju ne sera plus jamais le même, le père s'enfonce dans l'alcool, la mère dans le bigotisme et Ajay se réfugie dans la littérature. Dans l'ombre de son frère aîné, ce dernier reste seul à porter les espoirs de ses parents. Adolescent rêveur, tiraillé entre deux cultures, il va devoir lutter pour trouver sa voie - sans jamais oublier les siens.
«On est touché en plein coeur devant tant de beauté.»The New York Times
As he stood up, he suddenly felt aroused by Mrs Shaw's large breasts, boy's haircut, and little-girl sneakers. Even her nostrils suggested a frank sexuality. Gopal wanted to put his hands on her waist and pull her toward him. And then he realized that he had. Gopal Maurya's wife has left him, preferring to seek enlightenment in an ashram in India. But when his neighbour comes to borrow his lawnmower, Gopal thinks he might find something similar right here in New Jersey. Armed with Cosmopolitan magazine as his bible, he embarks on a quest for suburban romance.
Ram Karan est un homme corrompu.
C'est aussi un être cynique rongé par un ignoble secret. Petit fonctionnaire au département de l'éducation de New Delhi, il recueille et distribue les pots-de-vin pour le compte d'un influent protecteur. Lorsque Rajiv Gandhi est assassiné, le petit monde de Ram bascule dans le chaos.
Late one June afternoon, seven months after my wedding, I woke from a short, deep sleep, in love with my husband. Whether describing the tensions of an arranged marriage, the trauma of having an alcoholic mother, or the petty corruption of an Indian neighbourhood, Akhil Sharma's stories always expose the cultural collisions - the paradoxes, ironies, and harmonies - that characterise modern life. What does it mean to be foreign? And can you find a home in exile? In these elegant, unsparing and unusually intimate stories - five of which were first published in the New Yorker - the Folio Prize-winning author explores these questions with disarming honesty. Marrying the minimalism of Chekhov and Carver with an unparalleled flair for dark comedy, A Life of Adventure and Delight is a book of wisdom, wonder and poignant reflection from a writer courageous enough to explore the darkening margins of the psyche.
