BOOKER PRIZE SHORTLIST • KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR)

A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years—an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize–winning author of The Inheritance of Loss

“A transcendent triumph . . . not so much a novel as a marvel.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A spectacular literary achievement. I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever.” —Ann Patchett

“Devastating, lyrical, and deeply romantic . . . an unmitigated joy to read.” —Khaled Hosseini

“Vast and immersive. . . . No detail, large or small, seems to escape Desai’s attention, every character (in a huge cast) feels fully realized, and the writing moves with consummate fluency between an array of modes: philosophical, comic, earnest, emotional, and uncanny.” —2025 Booker Prize Jury (Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Chris Power, Kiley Reid, Roddy Doyle, and Sarah Jessica Parker)

“Desai exceeds the expectations of a literary novel, weaving a multitude of characters, storylines and incisive ideas into a single cohesive masterpiece.”—The Globe and Mail

One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Fall: The New York Times, Oprah Daily, Time, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, Book Riot, Publishers Weekly, and more

When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive Sonia and Sunny apart.

Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world.

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.

“Desai exceeds the expectations of a literary novel, weaving a multitude of characters, storylines and incisive ideas into a single cohesive masterpiece.”—The Globe and Mail

“A transcendent triumph . . . not so much a novel as a marvel.” —The New York Times

“[The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’s] multi-faceted exploration of loneliness is emblematic of how the author resists reducing experience to a definitive singularity, celebrating plurality and individuality instead. . . . Desai has written an enthralling love story that blooms to encompass so much more: a magnificent portrait of alienation, creativity and the immense difficulty of finding a home.” —The Spectator (UK)

“[T]he seamless prose, the humour, the melancholy. . . . [Desai] makes readers want to still reside a little more, no matter how long the story. . . . The book is not just a celebrated return of a literary giant, but the one that will make Kiran Desai one of the sharpest chroniclers of our restless, dislocated times.” —The New Indian Express

“Vast and immersive. . . . No detail, large or small, seems to escape Desai’s attention, every character (in a huge cast) feels fully realized, and the writing moves with consummate fluency between an array of modes: philosophical, comic, earnest, emotional, and uncanny.” —2025 Booker Prize Jury (Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, Chris Power, Kiley Reid, Roddy Doyle, and Sarah Jessica Parker)

“Marvelous. . . . Desai is masterful. . . . The narrative is punctuated with nuanced, frequently devastating insights into the knottiness of race and representation, the legacy of orientalism, and the complexities of interracial and intercultural relationships. . . . The authorial voice is both incisive and witty, splicing serious observation with humour. . . . [The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny] floats upon itself, a gazing eye, a voice, a thought, a magnificent vision.” —The Washington Post

“[The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny] is a gorgeous, transporting fiction. . . . Desai shapes a confection of weightless imagery, of clouds, air and the elements, liberally mixing the quotidian and the mystical. Her prose is a glorious glut of sensation. . . . In [Desai’s] vast novel of lost souls, no one is mediocre or left behind.” —Financial Times

“What Desai has produced is both expansive and intimate. . . . At a time of distracted, fractured reading, Desai returns to the novel’s oldest and still most radical ambition: to make the complexity of other human lives shareable. Her prose is luxurious and sensual; each item of food and shift in the quality of light is noted with such tenderness that it becomes something life affirming. . . . The result is a novel of tremendous scope and emotional richness: absorbing, poignant, frequently funny and, above all, deeply humane.” —The Irish Times

“[A] triumph. . . . Desai has a Dickensian love for the ever so slightly larger than life, for characters who are simultaneously familiar types and distinct individuals. Always eloquent but rarely concise, she revels in detail for its own sake; the novel abounds in humorous asides and glories in tossed-off details, and wry observations. . . . [The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny] is a glorious profusion of character and colour, insight and provocation. Lavish, funny, smart, and wise, this is a novel that will last.” —The Boston Globe

“A dazzling epic . . . immensely entertaining and generative . . . [Desai] pulls it off, not only in her maneuvering of cast and incident, but in her ability to elicit apprehension, laughter, compassion and curiosity in the reader.” —The Guardian

“A sweeping romance that spans decades and continents . . . epic.” —Time

“A sweeping page-turner, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a kind of Romeo and Juliet story for a modern, globalized age.” —Publishers Weekly (Top 10 New Fall Books)

“Beautifully-written, acutely observed, and richly textured, this is a stunning, transformative novel of both epic and intimate proportions.” —Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other, winner of the Booker Prize

“I had been dying to read a gorgeously written, sweeping novel like this. Desai’s tale—devastating, lyrical, and deeply romantic—grapples with the complexities of artistic ambition, migration, loss, love, and confronts a central question: What does it mean to belong? How does one reach ever toward the future when haunted by the past? This poignant novel—rich with culture, heartbreak, and hope—was an unmitigated joy to read.” —Khaled Hosseini, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns

“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny achieves the ultimate of what a book should do: carry us away into other peoples’ lives, thinking as they think, feeling as they feel, until it comes around and shows us to ourselves. Grand, magnificent, intimate, more than wonderful, this is a novel you will hold close to your heart. I certainly did. I cannot recommend it enough.” —Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Less

“As entertaining as it is profound.” —The Boston Globe

“A luscious love story . . . a deeply satisfying read.” —Oprah Daily

“Stunning . . . an epic, according to some early reviewers, ‘immersive’ with its cast of fascinating characters, shifting locales, and a plot that not only is a love story, but also contains elements of a bildungsroman, thriller, and murder mystery.” —Poets & Writers

“Literary love stories are vanishingly rare these days, and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is that even more precious thing: a love story that’s also profound, sparkling, funny, exquisitely written, and that teaches us how to live in full-throated exultation for the astonishments of this world. Reading it feels like a long conversation at night with your most interesting and ardent friend.”—Lauren Groff, bestselling author of The Matrix and Fates and Furies

“What sheer delight! I haven’t read a book that buoyed my soul this much in a very long time—such light, such lightness, such lightness of touch; such beauty, humor, and generosity of spirit. A grand and stirring love story, written in exquisite prose: it softly bombarded me and broke about my heart.” —Namwali Serpell, author of The Furrows and The Old Drift

“Magnificent . . . A masterpiece.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"This novel about a pair of young Indians in America becomes one about westernised Indians rediscovering their country, and in some ways a novel about the Indian novel’s place in the world. Vast and immersive, the book enfolds a magical realist fable within a social novel within a love story. We loved the way in which no detail, large or small, seems to escape Desai’s attention, every character (in a huge cast) feels fully realised, and the writing moves with consummate fluency between an array of modes: philosophical, comic, earnest, emotional, and uncanny." —2025 Booker Prize judges

“Kiran Desai reveals the breadth and depth of time, how it weighs on families and nations caught within the drama of history. She captures this with a rare and astute sensitivity that, no matter her subject, casts a light on our present.” —Hisham Matar, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Return

“A powerful novel by a writer strong enough to pull back together worlds that are being pulled apart.” —Mohsin Hamid, New York Times bestselling author of Exit West

“I often get sent galleys. Most of the time I’m impressed but only rarely do I fall so deeply into a book that I lose track of everything. Now, a novel from Kiran Desai is always going to be an event, but The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny will be seismic, trust me. Brilliant doesn’t begin to describe this novel’s profound illuminative powers.” —Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is both epic and intimate. This is a story of two young people, and a story of families and belonging. That Kiran Desai also finds a way to deftly thread unflinching questions about the imagination and creativity through these immersive pages is brilliant evidence of her formidable and incomparable gifts as a writer. What a magnificent achievement, made all the more rare for its compulsive readability. I could not put this book down.” —Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King, finalist for the Booker Prize

“Desai’s artful prose is subtle even when pitched on a grand scale. . . . This ambitious yet intimate saga is well worth the wait.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Rich with old-fashioned storytelling and populated with fully fleshed, nuanced characters, this is a stunner worth savoring.” —Booklist, starred review

“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny represents more than just a new novel—it’s a vindication of the patient, painstaking approach to literary creation. In an era of rapid publication cycles and social media-driven literary culture, Desai’s two-decade commitment to a single work offers a different model of artistic achievement. . . . Some literary achievements are indeed worth any wait.” —American Kahani

“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a deeply satisfying, profoundly moving, witty, and occasionally heart-rending novel that explores immigration; alienation; the relationship between art, the artist, and artistic subject; and the changing role of women in contemporary India. . . . This is a novel that is worth reading more than once.” —International Examiner (Seattle)

“Kiran Desai’s long-awaited return is a transcendent triumph. . . . The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny . . . is not so much a novel as a marvel. . . . In an era of hot takes and chilly optimized productivity, here is sweet validation of the idea that to create something truly transcendent—a work of art depicting love, family, nature and culture in all their fullness—might take time. . . . Among those most rarefied books: better company than real-life people.” —Alexandra Jacobs, The New York Times

“[The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’s] undeniable power and heft is an effect of accumulated time spent in the company of Desai’s characters: the more you give, the more you’ll get. By longlisting it, this year’s Booker’s judges have shown their confidence not only in Desai, but in readers.” —The Times (UK)

“Desai has pulled off an astonishing feat. . . . [The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny] makes you feel the diverse loneliness of her myriad characters in your bones, it makes you cringe as well as worry for the sprawling cast, and in the end, it leaves you with a sad-happy understanding.” —The Hindu

“Desai treats readers to a new literary feast.” —Bustle

“[A] deeply felt mapping of displacement and desire” —Scroll

“[A] sweeping, deeply emotional novel that reaffirms Desai’s mastery of storytelling and her profound insight into human experience.” —India Blooms