Buddha’s Orphans

Hailed as ‘a Buddhist Chekhov’ by the San Franciso Chronicle, Samrat Upadhyay’s writing has won high praise from stalwarts like Amitav Ghosh and Suketu Mehta.

Upadhyay’s new novel, Buddha’s Orphans, uses Nepal’s political upheavals of the past century as a backdrop to the story of an orphan boy, Raja, and the girl he is fated to love, Nilu, a daughter of privilege. Their love story scandalises both families and takes readers through time and across the globe, through the loss of and search for children, and through several generations, hinting that perhaps old bends can, in fact, be righted in future branches of a family tree.

Buddha’s Orphans is a novel permeated with the sense of how we are irreparably connected to the mothers who birthed us and of the way events of the past, even those we are ignorant of, inevitably haunt the present. But most of all it is an engrossing, unconventional love story and a seductive, transporting read.

“In this novel. Upadhyay has masterfully blended history, tragedy, politics and romance to create the arresting story of a family that is at once unique and universal, set against the backdrop of a vibrant, complicated, modern Nepal that will fascinate readers.” -Chitra Divakaruni, author of One Amazing Thing and Palace of Illusions

“Buddha’s Orphans is an extraordinary achievement. It has the sweep and romantic grandeur of a great old-fashioned Russian novel, and, at the same time, the precision and intimacy of a beautiful collection of linked stories. Samrat Upadhyay has created a remarkable work, one to be savoured and remembered.” —Dan Chaon, author of Await Your Reply

• Samrat Upadhyay

           Buddha’s orphans