A Lovesong for India - by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (Paperback)

About the Book

Like Jhumpa Lahriri, Monica Ali and Arundhati Roy, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has long captured the Western-Indian experience. In this expansive story collection, Jhabvala continues her lifelong meditation on East and West. Set in India, England, and New York City, "A Lovesong for India" reveals what unites us across oceans, cultures, and lifetimes.
Remarkable and unwavering, this collection is the hallmark of Jhabvala's celebrated career and a testament to her "balance, subtlety, wry humor, and beauty" -"The New York Times"

Book Synopsis

From the Booker Prize-winning novelist and screenwriter of Howard's End "Cinematic" and "exquisite" stories of longing, loss, and redemption (Publishers Weekly).

In this expansive story collection, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, author of Heat and Dust and the screenplays for The Remains of the Day and A Room with a View, continues her lifelong meditation on East and West. Set in India, England, and New York City, A Lovesong for India reveals what unites us across oceans, cultures, and lifetimes.

In "Innocence," an older couple, whose social standing is marred by a decades-old scandal, rent out rooms in their Delhi home for both companionship and income. The couple becomes deeply invested in the lives of their two tenants, but with the addition of a third renter--a beautiful and provocative woman from India--tensions in the household push the story to its feverish conclusion.

"Talent" finds Jhabvala in New York City reflecting on the friction between family and societal expectations. Magda is a talent scout whose work is her entire life until she meets Ellie, a singer whose immense ability and unguarded personality captivate Magda. Soon Ellie is integrated into Magda's extended family--for better or worse. This remarkable collection is the hallmark of Jhabvala's celebrated career and a testament to her "balance, subtlety, wry humor, and beauty" (The New York Times).

Review Quotes

Praise for A Lovesong for India

"Jhabvala demonstrates the concise and detached writing style for which she is known and praised. Her reputation alone ought to be enough to recommend this collection, but its energy, subtlety, and beauty legitimize its place in all fiction collections." --Library Journal

"Ruth Prawer Jhabvala [is] a prodigious talent . . . India is here in full Technicolor, but so are Piccadilly and Park Avenue. This writer's genius--unlike Conrad's or Forster's or even Austen's--is that she points out how essentially similar insiders and outsiders can be." --The Washington Post

"...A cinematic quality... The opulent setting and plot twists are noteworthy... Jhabvala's exquisite sensibilities promise a more satisfying engagement." --Publishers Weekly

"If these 11 exquisitely crafted stories are indeed love songs, they sing not so much of India as of the vulnerability of the human heart... acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala sketches, with a few deft strokes, the longings and losses of people she encountered or perhaps imagined... Her stories speak to the essential impossibility of ever really knowing, let alone owning, another human being, especially someone you dearly love." --The Philadelphia Inquirer

About the Author

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is the author of nineteen books. She is the recipient of Booker Prize, a MacArthur fellowship, and has been honored with an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Jhabvala's screenplays for Merchant-Ivory Productions have earned two Academy Awards. Jhabvala and her husband divide their time between Delhi and New York.