The Death of Vishnu (Magill’s Literary Annual 2002)
At a glance:
- Author: Manil Suri
- First Published: 2001
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The late 1990’s
- Setting: Bombay (Mumbai), India
- Principal Characters: Vishnu, Mr. Pathak, Usha, Veeru, Mr. Asrani, Aruna, Kavita, Shyamu, Mr. Jalal, Arifa, Salim, Vinod Taneja, Sheetal, Padmini
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Magical Realism
- Subjects: Twentieth century, Death or dying, Gods or goddesses, India or East Indian people, Apartment houses, Hindus or Hinduism, 1990’s, Elopement
- Locales: Bombay, India
For those who claim that the finest contemporary writers in English are ones whose mother tongue is another language, The Death of Vishnu provides spectacular confirmation of their theory. With this first novel, Manil Suri places himself in the company of Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Anita Desai, Bapsi Sidhwa, Gita Mehta, Arundhati Roy, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and others in the great post-independence Indian and Pakistani literary flowering. In a beautifully structured effort (Suri is a professional mathematician), he links and overlays a half dozen tales, using the “pathetic”...
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