Author: Kiran Desai
Published: 2025
Pages: 688
Prize: Shortlist, Man Booker 2025
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The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny explores the intersecting loneliness of two Indian expats—Sonia, a homesick college student in Vermont, and Sunny, a struggling journalist in Brooklyn. Both grapple with alienation, cultural displacement, and the search for belonging. Their families, unaware of their struggles, arrange a meeting that backfires, deepening their isolation. The novel weaves their personal journeys with themes of love, family, and the complexities of identity across generations.
Complexity
CEFR: B2/C1
Plot Complexity: high
Language Complexity: moderate
Ideas Complexity: moderate
Blurb
Behind every love story are the myriad stories of two families.
In the snowy mountains of Vermont, Sonia is lonely. A college student and aspiring writer homesick for India, she turns to an older artist for inspiration and intimacy, a man who will cast a dark spell on the next many years of her life. In Brooklyn, Sunny is lonely, too. A struggling journalist originally from Delhi, he is both beguiled and perplexed by his American girlfriend and the country in which he plans to find his future. As Sonia and Sunny each becomes more and more alienated, they begin to question their understanding of happiness, human connection, and where they belong.
Back in India, Sonia and Sunny’s extended families cannot fathom how anyone could be lonely in this great, bustling world. They arrange a meeting between the two—a clumsy meddling that only drives Sonia and Sunny apart before they have a chance to fall in love.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their 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.
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