Habitations: A Novel

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A young academic moves from India to the United States, where she navigates first love, a green card marriage, single motherhood, and more in this delightful novel, written with immediacy, warmth, and wry humor (Ha Jin, National Book Award-winning author of Waiting).

Vega Gopalan is adrift. Still reeling from the death of her sister years earlier, she leaves South India to attend graduate school at Columbia University. In New York, Vega straddles many different worlds, eventually moving in and out of a series of relationships that take her through the striving world of academia, the intellectual isolation of the immigrant suburbs, and, ultimately, the loneliness of single motherhood. But it is the birth of Vegas daughter that forces the novels central question: What does it mean to make a home

Written with dry humor and searing insight, Habitations is an intimate story of identity, immigration, expectation and desire, and of love lost and found. But it is also a universal story of womanhood, and the ways in which women are forced to navigate multiple loyalties: to family, to community, and to themselves.

A profound meditation on the many meanings of home and on the ways love and kinship can be found, even in the most unfamiliar of places, Habitations introduces Sheila Sundar as an electrifying new voice in literary fiction.

Reviews

A debut novel that explores the contours of grief and globalization with conviction. The story unfolds episodically, in a good way; in Sundars hands, the scenes tumble together hypnotically. The book captures a moment in timebefore smartphones and social media as we know them todayamong a particular set of people who cross international borders for higher education and enticing opportunities. The catch is that their lives can be as circumscribed by capricious visa policies and systemic prejudices as by any personal limitations. This yields a sense of transience; Sundar captures the cascades of smaller griefs as Vega and the people in her universe develop close ties when they overlap in cities and on campuses, then move on for coursework, jobs, fellowships, and family.Kirkus

Sheila Sundars irresistible debut is a provocative meditation on grief, desire, and the unexpected ways the two entangle. Brimming with emotional intricacies, crisp prose, and sly humor, HABITATIONS traverses the complicated, intimate politics and promises of the places we seek to call home.DEESHA PHILYAW, author of National Book Award Finalist The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

Habitationsis a delightful novel, written with immediacy, warmth, and wry humor. Covering dramas both personal and universal, Sundar offers insightful reflections on the desire for arrival and the longing for return. This is a significant addition to migrant fiction.HA JIN, author of National Book Award winnerWaiting

A striking reflection on migration, family, loss and home, and a vital portrait of race in American academia. Through sharp, up-close narration, we share Vega Gopalan's piercing observations about the world that surrounds her, and the friends, loves, and city-dwelling strangers that come to shape her life as she tries to find her place in it.MECCA JAMILAH SULLIVAN,author ofBig Girl

Masterful storytelling.A sweeping, immersive and utterly perfect debut of a new talent and a fresh perspective on the Indian diaspora.In its multilayered, nuanced way, this novel will teach you about the strength of family, the force of love, the power of hope and the resilience of spirit. In other words, HABITATIONS will take you fearlessly by the hand and remind you of the purpose of living.WEIKE WANG, author of ChemistryandJoan is Okay

Author Bio

Sheila Sundar is a professor of English and creative writing at the University of Mississippi. Her writing has appeared in TheVirginia Quarterly Review,TheMassachusetts Review, The Threepenny Review, andelsewhere.She lives in New Orleans with her husband and their three children.Habitationsis her debut novel.