Most Popular Books by Hari Kunzru

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • From one of the sharpest voices in fiction today, a profound and enthralling novel about beauty and power, capital, art and those who devote their lives to creating it Once, Jay was an artist. After graduating from art school in London, he was tipped for greatness, a promising career taking shape before him. That was not to happen. Now, undocumented in the United States, having survived Covid, he lives out of his car and barely makes a living as an essential worker, delivering groceries in a wealthy area of upstate New York. One day, as Jay attempts to make a delivery at a house surrounded by acres of woods, he is confronted by his destructive past: Alice, a former lover from his art school days, and the friend she left him for. Recognizing Jay’s dire circumstances, Alice invites him to stay on their property—where an erratic gallery owner and his girlfriend are isolating as well—setting in motion a reckoning that has been decades in the making. Gripping and brilliantly orchestrated, Blue Ruin moves back and forth through time, delivering an extraordinary portrait of an artist as he reunites with his past and confronts the world he once loved and left behind.

Two ambitious young musicians are drawn into the dark underworld of blues-record collecting while navigating the fallout of a scam involving one''s claim that a viral video of an unknown singer is a long-lost recording of a famous blues musician.

From the author of White Tears and Blue Ruin, this bestselling, award-winning novel of a young man’s journey explores what it means to be Indian or English, black or white, and every degree that lies between. Pran Nath Razdan, the boy who will become the Impressionist, was passed off by his Indian mother as the child of her husband, a wealthy man of a high caste. Pran lived a life of luxury just downriver from the Taj Mahal, but at fifteen, the news of Pran’s true parentage is revealed to his father and he is tossed out into the street—a pariah and an outcast. Thus begins an extraordinary, near mythical journey of a young man who must reinvent himself to survive—not once, but many times. From Victorian India to Edwardian London, from an expatriate community of black Americans in Paris to a hopeless expedition to study a lost tribe of Africa, Hari Kunzru’s unforgettable debut novel dazzles with its artistry and wit while it challenges with its insights into the self, nationality, race, and beyond.

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES''S 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2020 ONE OF NPR''s BEST BOOKS OF 2020 ONE OF THE A.V. CLUB''S 15 FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2020 From the widely acclaimed author of White Tears, a bold new novel about searching for order in a world that frames madness as truth. After receiving a prestigious writing fellowship in Germany, the narrator of Red Pill arrives in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee and struggles to accomplish anything at all. Instead of working on the book he has proposed to write, he takes long walks and binge-watches Blue Lives--a violent cop show that becomes weirdly compelling in its bleak, Darwinian view of life--and soon begins to wonder if his writing has any value at all. Wannsee is a place full of ghosts: Across the lake, the narrator can see the villa where the Nazis planned the Final Solution, and in his walks he passes the grave of the Romantic writer Heinrich von Kleist, who killed himself after deciding that "no happiness was possible here on earth." When some friends drag him to a party where he meets Anton, the creator of Blue Lives, the narrator begins to believe that the two of them are involved in a cosmic battle, and that Anton is "red-pilling" his viewers--turning them toward an ugly, alt-rightish worldview--ultimately forcing the narrator to wonder if he is losing his mind.

Jaz and Lisa Matharu are plunged into a public hell after their son, Raj, vanishes during a family vacation in the California desert. However, the Mojave is a place of strange power. Before Raj reappears— inexplicably unharmed, but not unchanged—the fate of this young family will intersect with that of many others, both past and present, who have traveled through this odd, remote town in the shadow of a mysterious rock formation known as the Pinnacles. Among them are an 18th-century Spanish missionary, a former WWII aviation engineer turned desert-cult messiah, and an incognito rock star on the run. As their stories collide and build upon one another, Gods Without Men becomes a heartfelt exploration of the search for meaning in a chaotic universe.

“Powerful” (The New Yorker), “extraordinary” (The New York Times Book Review), and “brilliant” (Entertainment Weekly)—you won’t be able to put down this novel by the award-winning bestselling author of White Tears and Blue Ruin Critics have compared him to Martin Amis, Zadie Smith, Tom Wolfe, and Don DeLillo. Granta dubbed him “one of the twenty best fiction writers under forty.” In My Revolutions, Hari Kunzru delivers his best novel yet. Chris Carver is living a lie. His wife, their teenage daughter, and everyone in their circle know him as Michael Frame, suburban dad. They have no idea that as a radical student during the sixties, he briefly became a terrorist, protesting the Vietnam War by setting off bombs. Until one day a ghost from his past turns up on his doorstep, forcing Chris on the run.

The award-winning writer of White Tears and Blue Ruin takes an ultra-contemporary turn with the story of an Indian computer programmer whose luxurious fantasies about life in America are shaken when he accepts a California job offer. Lonely and naïve, Arjun spends his days as a lowly assistant virus-tester, pining away for his free-spirited colleague, Christine. Arjun gets laid off like so many of his Silicon Valley peers, and in an act of desperation to keep his job, he releases a mischievous but destructive virus around the globe that has major unintended consequences. As world order unravels, so does Arjun’s sanity, in a rollicking cataclysm that reaches Bollywood and, not so coincidentally, the glamorous star of Arjun’s favorite Indian movie.

A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Original Selection The Wall Street businessman is about to become very wealthy—serious money, you understand—but while flying from New York to Silicon Valley to officially sell his startup, he has a very damaging, very disturbing, possibly destiny-altering dream. In this new story from Hari Kunzru, the explosive, wildly inventive, stunningly ambitious author of the acclaimed novel Gods Without Men, a titan of industry mustn’t forget that he was a boy once; and an English public school past can continue to haunt far after graduation. “Ink” is a cautionary tale rebooted for the startup age. An eBook short.

This collection of stories focuses on technology, the dot-com phenomenon and the wired generation subjects which Kunzru knows from the inside out and which he explores in his highly acclaimed novel Transmission.

Dans le vide immense et brutal du désert de Mojave, Nicky, une rock star en fuite, cherche sa rémission. Laila, jeune Irakienne réfugiée, joue à la guerre dans une reconstitution orchestrée par les commandos américains. Dawn, elle, désormais seule dans son motel, traîne le souvenir doux-amer de la communauté hippie qui l’a vue grandir... Dans ce même espace, un enfant disparaît, projetant ses parents dans un enfer de douleur et de culpabilité. Mais le désert est par nature inexplicable et miraculeux, et voici que le destin de Raj et de tous les autres converge vers une zone étrange éloignée de tout, au pied d’une spectaculaire formation rocheuse : les Pinnacles, terrain propice aux plus folles aspirations. Là retentissent comme un écho les histoires de ceux qui avant eux se sont aventurés dans ces paysages puissants, hostiles, imprégnés de mystère. Ce roman total, aux surprenantes strates narratives, est de ces lectures qui nous habitent et nous changent. Dieu sans les hommes, c’est notre quête du sens de l’existence dans un univers chaotique et aléatoire. Ici, dans le silence et l’absence, comment faire face à l’indicible ? Traduit de l''anglais par Claude et Jean Demanuelli

Por el ganador de los premios Betty Trask, Somerset Maugham y British Book Award, elegido por Granta y Lire como uno de los escritores más prometedores de la actualidad, cuya obra ha sido traducida a veintiún idiomas. Un niño de cuatro años desaparece y sus padres se ven envueltos en una mediática caza de brujas. Una estrella del rock británica se esconde en un destartalado motel. Una refugiada iraquí es convertida en actriz en un pueblo de mentira creado por el ejército estadounidense. Un místico jesuita español del siglo XVIII da muestras de excesiva independencia... Un puñado de vidas convergen alrededor de una primigenia formación rocosa en el desierto de Mojave, en California: allí el presente se conecta con el pasado y la tierra con el cielo, subvirtiendo las reglas de dioses y hombres. Dioses sin hombres ha sido elegido uno de los mejores 100 libros de 2012 por The New York Times . La crítica ha dicho: «Extraordinaria, innovadora. Una revelación. Tiene algo de Vonnegut, Pynchon o Wolfe. Realmente estimulante... Una aventura contracultural que abre la mente.» The Guardian «La gran novela de Kunzru, uno de los novelistas actuales más importantes... Esta odisea americana aporta una nueva nota en su preocupación sobre la identidad humana.» The Independent «Una obra maestra.» Publishers Weekly «Apasionada, inteligente y profunda... Necesitamos más libros como éste.» Scotland on Sunday «Una de las mejores novelas del año... Épica en alcance y ambición... Una obra de la que se hablará en todas partes.» The Daily Telegraph «La contagiosa electricidad de la prosa de Kunzru y la agilidad de su trama son arrasadoras.» The New Yorker «A los pilares de la literatura trans como Las horas de Michael Cunningham y El atlas de las nubes de David Mitchell podemos añadir Dioses sin hombres, la magnífica e inteligente novela de Hari Kunzru.» The New York Times Book Review «Kunzru ya se ha confirmado como uno de los novelistas más hábiles y observadores. En Dioses sin hombres ha acelerado su marcha aún más, creando una ficción madura, intrincadamente equilibrada, que resulta ser siempre apasionante y entretenida.» The Literary Review «Rico en detalles, eléctricamente entretenido, un retrato oscuro de la moral moderna.» GQ «Esta maravillosa novela de Hari Kunzru se vale de diversas culturas para especular acerca de la naturaleza de la realidad y la religión, la magia y el misterio.» Kirkus Reviews « Dioses sin hombres es genial, una narración tan vasta como el lienzo sobre el cual está escrita.» The Washington Post «Una divertida y hermosa novela, sorpresivamente conmovedora, que lanza grandes preguntas.» Psychologies Magazine

Jaz und Lisa Matharu reisen mit ihrem autistischen Sohn in die kalifornische Mojave-Wüste, um dem New Yorker Alltag zu entfliehen und ihre Ehe zu retten. Doch bei einem Ausflug verschwindet der vierjährige Raj in der Nähe einer Felsformation, die die bizarre Landschaft prägt und seit jeher Objekt mythischer Vorstellungen ist. 1947 ließ sich an gleicher Stelle ein ehemaliger Flugzeugmechaniker namens Schmidt nieder, der in den Felsen eine natürliche Antenne sah, um Kontakt zu Außerirdischen aufzunehmen. Quellen zufolge war dort bereits 1778 dem Missionar Francesco Garcès ein Engel erschienen, in Menschengestalt, mit dem Kopf eines Löwen ... Alle Versuche der Polizei, Raj zu finden, scheitern, und es tauchen vermehrt Blogs und Tweets auf, in denen Jaz und Lisa verdächtigt werden, selbst für das Verschwinden ihres Kindes verantwortlich zu sein. Meisterhaft verknüpft Hari Kunzru eine Vielzahl von Schicksalen zu einem hellsichtigen, hochaktuellen Roman, der zugleich Gegenwartspanorama und Echokammer der Vergangenheit ist. Denn gestern wie heute ist das Aufeinanderprallen verschiedener Kulturen immer auch ein Kampf um Wahrheit und Macht.