Darkmotherland by Samrat Upadhyay

A Dickensian sweep and a vast cast of characters, Upadhyay created an ancient world saturated with the spirit of our time and shaped by political ambition and dark vision . . . A grand novel indeed. Ha Jin, National Book Awardwinning author of Waiting

An epic tale of love and political violence set in earthquake-ravaged Darkmotherland, a dystopian reimagining of Nepal, from the Whiting Awardwinning author of Arresting God in Kathmandu

In Darkmotherland, Nepali writer Samrat Upadhyay has created a novel of infinite embracefilled with lovers and widows, dictators and dissidents, paupers, fundamentalists, and a genderqueer power player with her eyes on the thronein an earthquake-ravaged dystopian reimagining of Nepal.

At its heart are two intertwining narratives: one of Kranti, a revolutionarys daughter who marries into a plutocratic dynasty and becomes ensnared in the familys politics. And then there is the tale of Darkmotherlands new dictator and his mistress, Rozy, who undergoes radical body changes and grows into a figure of immense power.

Darkmotherland is a romp through the vast space of a globalized universe where personal ambitions are inextricably tied to political fortunes, where individual identities are shaped by family pressures and social reins, and where the East connects to and collides with the West in brilliant and unsettling ways.