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Title details for The Limits of the World by Jennifer Acker - Available

The Limits of the World

A Novel

by Jennifer Acker
ebook
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1 of 1 copy available
A “smart, compassionate and elegant” debut novel about an Asian-Indian immigrant family from Nairobi and the secrets they keep from each other (Lauren Groff, author of Florida).
 
The Chandaria family—emigrants from the Asian-Indian enclave of Nairobi—has managed to flourish in America. Premchand, the father, is a doctor who has worked doggedly to grow his practice and give his family security; his wife, Urmila, runs a business importing artisanal Kenyan crafts; and their son, Sunil, after quitting the premed track, has been accepted to a PhD program in philosophy at Harvard.
 
But the parents have kept a very important secret from Sunil: His cousin, Bimal, is actually his older brother. When this previously hidden history is revealed by an unforeseen accident, and the entire family is forced to return to Nairobi, Sunil confesses his own well-kept, explosive secret: His Jewish-American girlfriend, who has accompanied him to Kenya, is, in fact, already his wife.
 
Spanning four generations and three continents, The Limits of the World illuminates the vast mosaic of cultural divisions and ethical considerations that shape the ways in which we judge one another’s actions. A dazzling debut novel—written with rare empathy and insight—it is a powerful depiction of how we prevent ourselves, unwittingly and otherwise, from understanding the people we are closest to.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 16, 2019

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781504057400

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781504057400
      • File size: 1095 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 11, 2019
      Acker unwinds a complex intergenerational story of immigration, culture, family, partnership, and ethics in her skillful debut. Sunil Chandaria is struggling. A PhD student of philosophy at Harvard, he is at an impasse writing his dissertation on ethical behavior and is in danger of losing his funding if he doesn’t finish. Meanwhile, his girlfriend, Amy, is disturbed by her parents’ increasing religiosity. Sunil has a difficult relationship with his own parents, an Indian couple who immigrated to America from an Indian enclave in Nairobi years earlier. His mother in particular is unhappy in Massachusetts, running a struggling shop that sells artisanal Kenyan crafts; her husband, a prominent doctor, has been keeping the store afloat financially. When Sunil learns of a shocking family secret about why his family left Kenya, he must return to track down the exact events leading to his family’s departure. Sunil’s travels through Kenya move effortlessly through dreamy sequences and feature plenty of difficult ethical questions and tense family drama. Fans of Jhumpa Lahiri or Yaa Gyasi will want to check out Acker’s elegant saga.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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