In The Inheritance of Loss, her second novel, Kiran Desai addresses herself to an Indian culture in which globalisation isn't imagined but experienced, whether in exile abroad or as a result of painful social and cultural displacements within the country itself. This makes the novel sound rather gloomily earnest, but Desai's scepticism and fearfulness are expressed as a dark exuberance: she can't help relishing the textures of the fragmentation she describes.

LRB 5 October 2006 | PDF Download