The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a spectacular literary achievement. I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever

Ann Patchett

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

A powerful novel by a writer strong enough to pull back together worlds that are being pulled apart

Mohsin Hamid

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

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

A masterpiece . . . Desai’s trust in her own process pays off, as vignettes of just a page or two intersect with the novel’s central obsessions—love, family, writing, the role of the U.S. in the Indian imagination, the dangers faced by a woman on her own—and come to a perfectly satisfying close . . . magnificent

Kirkus (starred review)

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

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