Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025

A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years-an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Inheritance of Loss

When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated, yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that only served to drive Sonia and Sunny apart.

Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India, fearing she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world.

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: 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.

'I wanted to pack a little suitcase and stay inside this book forever' Ann Patchett

Profound, sparkling, funny, exquisitely written, [The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny] teaches us how to live in full-throated exultation for the astonishments of this world' Lauren Groff

Review: Kiran Desai's long-awaited third novel is an utter triumph . . . it's one of the strongest contenders on this year's Booker longlist . . . Sentence by sentence, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny makes for blissful reading . . . Desai has managed some literary alchemy. On the surface, she has written a believable but still cute will-they-won't-they romance . . . but she also incorporates elements of magical realism . . . and through all that, Desai uses the struggle of her two writer protagonists to acknowledge, embrace and then undercut various tropes and cliches that Western readers have come to expect from her, and her compatriots -- Lucy Scholes * Daily Telegraph (5 stars) *
A sprawling epic love story that has consumed her life for two decades . . . far and away Desai's most ambitious novel . . . it spans continents and unearths decades of family history, exploring the effects of globalization, the legacy of colonialism and partition in India, and the slippery, transmutable nature of identity -- Alexandra Alter * New York Times *
A dazzling epic . . . this capacious story of love, work and family set between India and the US is both dizzyingly vast and insistently miniature . . . immensely entertaining -- Alex Clark * Guardian *
An epic romance . . . a consistently surprising saga jam-packed with incident . . . amongst it all, Desai finds time for nuanced send-ups of everything from the self-importance of a ritzy literary gala in New York to the machinations of the Indian marriage market, as well as poignant rumination on migrant experience -- Anthony Cummins * Sunday Times *
A transcendent triumph . . . not so much a novel as a marvel. [It is] among those most rarefied books: better company than real-life people -- Alexandra Jacobs * New York Times *
Desai's [novel] is so much more than a love story, exploring themes of race, class, American individualism, modern - day alienation, toxic entanglements and the fraught but fundamental need to forge connection. Steadily accruing emotional heft, it's entertaining, surprising, profound, and moving. Magnificent -- Stephanie Cross * Daily Mail *
This novel is grand in sweep yet satisfyingly intimate -- Malcolm Forbes * Economist *
It demands patient engagement and offers generous rewards in return . . . this oceanic novel . . . the tides of history run alongside the currents of chance and fate that shape the lives of Sonia and Sunny . . . The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny overspills boundaries because it addresses an impossibly huge subject. Like India itself, it refuses to be contained within modest expectations -- Dinah Birch * Times Literary Supplement *
Literary love stories are vanishingly rare these days, and The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is that even more precious thing: a love story that's also profound, sparkling, funny, exquisitely written, and that teaches us how to live in full-throated exultation for the astonishments of this world. It has so many urgent things to say-about the costs and consolations of art, about power and class and race and freedom-that reading the book feels like a long conversation at night with your most interesting and ardent friend -- Lauren Groff
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