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“Written from within the skin of India, The Alchemy of Desire is a novel quite unlike any other, with a power and weight of feeling one almost never encounters in contemporary literature. It celebrates the manic spirit of a country in a time of great change; and also offers in searing, lucid prose, a deeply sensual and moving meditation on the nature of desire, history, truth and art. Set against the brilliantly drawn backdrop of India at the turn of the millennium, The Alchemy of Desire tells the story of a young couple, penniless but gloriously in love. Obsessed with each other, they move from a small town to the big city, where the narrator who dreams of being a writer works feverishly on a novel, stopping only to feed his ceaseless desire for his beautiful wife. But sensing that his writing is specious, the narrator is deeply restless. Seeking refuge, his wife and he buy an abandoned cottage in a mist-shrouded spur of the lower Himalayas. The house is to be a symbol of their love, but things begin to rapidly fall apart. During renovations a chance discovery triggers a strange energy, and the man finds himself irresistibly drawn away from his wife and thrust into another world and time. Into the hole of history. Slowly he begins to uncover dark secrets, until startling truths are laid bare and all certainties are overturned. Soon he is alone, surrounded by the debris of his life and great love, confronting his unwritten magnum opus and the darkness that is threatening to swamp him. Inventive, playful, heartbreaking. The Alchemy of Desire is at once intimate and oracular, brimming with ideas and unforgettable characters. It captures the polyphonic voices of India with an empathy and authenticity rarely achieved before. This is a major novel by one of the most significant new voices of his generation. |
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| Synopsis |
| ‘Its rich sexuality lifts this work away, way above the ordinary. Rare is the Indian writer in English who has ventured thus far with the language, force, imagery and originality. Tejpal is audacious as would be those who venture to assault the Himalayas. There are echoes of Nabokov, shades of Henry Miller and Philip Roth; and, influences of Rusdhie and Jim Corbett. None of which diminish the originality of a novel that is, paradoxically, as exciting as it is a pleasure’ |
| THE TRIBUNE |
| ‘Engaging and astute: he turns a clear eye on the social and political quirks, inequalities and contradictions of modern India… a lively and persistently entertaining novel’ |
| LITERARY REVIEW |
| ‘Tejpal explores women’s desire with rare intelligence and sensitivity. The reader, spellbound, is never turned into a voyeur, but is caught up in this Indian magician’s stunning prose’ |
| PSYCHOLOGIES MAGAZINE |
| ‘In the first half, the novel is at its strongest when it inscribes the diurnal rhythms of the narrator’s life: conversations with an elderly servant over chai, spare bachelor flats in Delhi, whiskey talk, highway vignettes, the magic unravelling of a (Sikh-Muslim) marriage. In the second half, it assumes the urgency of a thriller… Throughout, it reveals Tejpal’s eye for characterisation and description’ |
| GUARDIAN |
| ‘He has a compassionate eye and an instinctive understanding of the underprivileged, the simple and the dispossessed. The wretchedness of ordinary people’s is well caught, the tragedies, the telling detail and the convulsive changes the subcontinent has suffered over the past 60 years’ |
| SPECTATOR |
| ‘The passion in the novel is deeply organic to the characters and the narrative. As an attempt to compel readers to look at desire without the crippling impulse of shame and hypocrisy, it works beautifully’ |
| INDEPENDENT |
| ‘A love story written on the body… In the end, you have nothing but a story to gain, and this one, in its eroticism and excitement of ideas, heralds an arrival’ |
| INDIA TODAY |
| ‘The Alchemy of Desire is a bold book, and at times when you least expect it, a funny book. Tejpal manages to encompass whole lives, along with the galaxies of emotion contained therein’ |
| REDIFF.COM |
| ‘Throughout the novel, Tejpal’s sensuous language produces moments of breathtaking beauty, and he displays a poet’s joy in catching the feel, odour and appearance of the living world’ |
| BIG ISSUE |
| ‘A startling work of Nabokovian fiction’ |
| HINDU |
| ‘One of the most attractive Indian writers in English of his generation, he writes with a great deal of raw energy, inventively employing images which are at once sad, haunting, horrendously comic and beautiful’ |
| TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT |
| ‘A bold and weighty first novel. Tejpal is obsessed with the act of creation in its widest sense. He beats an erotic path through the depths of human desire: sexual, artistic, political. A memorable and impressive debut’ |
| SUNDAY TIMES |
| ‘This Indian masterpiece is like a voyage down the Ganges, long and infinitely pleasurable; the only thing that worries you is getting to the end too soon’ |
| FIGARO |
| ‘A lyrical and highly erotic love story’ |
| THE MAIL ON SUNDAY |
| 'At last - a new and brilliantly original novel from India' |
| V.S. NAIPAUL |
| 'Those
two journalists, Hemingway and Marquez, will be proud of their tribesman Tarun Tejpal' |
| PAUL ZACHARIA |