Publisher's Synopsis
Delhi, the near future: a former journalist goes in search of answers after she finds herself stripped of identity and citizenship and thrust into a vast conspiracy involving secret detention centers, government sanctioned murders, online rage, nationalist violence, and a figure of shifting identifies known as the 'New Delhi Monkey Man.' Bhopal, 1984: an assassin hunts a whistleblower through a central Indian city that will shortly be the site of the worst industrial disaster in the world's history. Calcutta, 1947: a veterinary student's life and work connect him to an ancient Vedic aircraft. And in 1859, a detachment of British soldiers rides towards the Himalayas in search of the last surviving leader of an anti-colonial rebellion. These timelines interweave to form a kaleidoscopic, epic novel in which each section is a pursuit, centered around a character who must find or recover crucial but hidden truths in their respective time. The Light at the End of the World, Siddhartha Deb's first novel in fifteen years, is a magisterial work of shifting forms, reminiscent of Cloud Atlas and Underworld.
