The Lowland: Shortlisted for The Booker Prize and The Women's Prize for Fiction - Tapa dura

She has an extraordinary power of empathy for her characters and a steady hand for unspooling the knotted threads of their individual motives and histories

Profound . real and convincing. The characters don't act like people in a novel: they are much closer to real life in their responses, their heartfelt cries of pain

A sweeping, ambitious story... There is no doubt that The Lowland confirms Lahiri as a writer of formidable powers and a great depth of feeling

She observes the small moments of adapting to a new country particularly beautifully. Cool, measured and beguiling writing

Poignant story and epic sweep

Elegant and thoughtful

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2013.

From Subhash's earliest memories, at every point, his brother was there. In the suburban streets of Calcutta where they wandered before dusk and in the hyacinth-strewn ponds where they played for hours on end, Udayan was always in his older brother's sight.

So close in age, they were inseparable in childhood and yet, as the years pass - as U.S tanks roll into Vietnam and riots sweep across India - their brotherly bond can do nothing to forestall the tragedy that will upend their lives. Udayan - charismatic and impulsive - finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty. He will give everything, risk all, for what he believes, and in doing so will transform the futures of those dearest to him: his newly married, pregnant wife, his brother and their parents. For all of them, the repercussions of his actions will reverberate across continents and seep through the generations that follow.

Epic in its canvas and intimate in its portrayal of lives undone and forged anew, The Lowland is a deeply felt novel of family ties that entangle and fray in ways unforeseen and unrevealed, of ties that ineluctably define who we are. With all the hallmarks of Jhumpa Lahiri's achingly poignant, exquisitely empathetic story-telling, this is her most devastating work of fiction to date.