No Country

(Paperback)

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Description

In November 1989, an Indian couple are discovered murdered in a small town in upstate New York. They lie together as though just disengaged from a long embrace. Yet their murder has been two centuries in the making. County Sligo, Ireland, 1843. Seventeen-year-old Brendan McCarthaigh and his best friend Padraig have everything ahead of them. Quiet Brendan is in love with books and headstrong, spirited Padraig is madly in love with black-haired Brigid. But when the sanctimonious Father Conlon discovers Padraig and Brigids clandestine affair, he sets in motion a chain of unforeseeable, irrevocable events that will propel one to North America and the other to Bengal. Weaving together private histories and real events, and taking us on a journey across the globe Kalyan Ray has crafted a sweeping, epic, multigenerational saga spanning two centuries. A rich, compelling tale of home and exile, identity and hybridity, it is also a story of oppression, friendship and compassion, and the few intimate degrees of separation that lie between love and murder.

Reviews

This beautifully-written, intelligent novel probes the nature of family, nation and home - of the loyalties and allegiances which comprise identity itself the story spans many generations and three continents to weave a panoramic tapestry, the very fabric of how we are all connected. This is a moving and compelling tale * Enid Shomer, author of The Twelve Rooms of the Nile *
An unforgettable journey through lives, continents, and history, No Country leaves you deeply moved. Kalyan Ray shows both the thrill and trauma of immigration in a true and powerful way. A wonderful book * Lara Vapnyar, award-winning author of The Scent of Pine *

Author Bio

Kalyan Rays family was uprooted from the Ganges Delta (now Bangladesh) through a combination of natural disasters, political upheaval, and poverty. He grew up in Calcutta, was educated in India and the US, and now lives in both countries. He is the author of the novel Eastwords (published in India) and several books of translations of contemporary Indian poetry into English, including City of Memories which has a preface by Allen Ginsberg.