The Center for Fiction Presents Kiran Desai on The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny with Marlon James

Tuesday, 7:00 pm EDT - 8:15 pm EDT September 30, 2025

The Center for Fiction
& Livestreamed

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Join us at The Center for Fiction as we welcome award-winning author Kiran Desai for the launch of her luminous, Booker Prize-longlisted new novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. Marlon James, author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf and A Brief History of Seven Killings, will join Desai in conversation.

Spanning decades and continents, Desai’s latest work is a masterful tale of love and estrangement, charting the lives of two young people brought together by chance and the weight of family history. When Sonia, a writer returning home to India after completing her studies in snowy Vermont, and Sunny, a disillusioned journalist in New York, cross paths on an overnight train, the echoes of their grandparents’ misguided matchmaking collide with their own uncertain futures. Sonia and Sunny are drawn back into each other’s orbit, navigating the dislocation of diaspora, the pull of family, and the many alienations of our modern world.

Exploring questions of class, history, and inheritance, Desai’s new novel is a sweeping, emotionally resonant meditation on identity, belonging, and the bonds that shape us. A book signing will follow the event.

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In Conversation

  • Kiran-Desai-photo-credit-M.-Sharkey7

    Kiran Desai

    Kiran Desai

    Kiran Desai is the bestselling author of the novels Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and The Inheritance of Loss, which won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Born in India, she came to the United States when she was sixteen and now lives in New York City.


    Photo Credit: M. Sharkey

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    Marlon James

    Marlon James

    Marlon James is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Black Leopard, Red Wolf, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and A Brief History of Seven Killings, which won the 2015 Man Booker Prize, as well as the novels The Book of Night Women and John Crow’s Devil. A professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, he lives in New York City.


    Photo Credit: Mark Seliger

Featured Book

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    The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

    By Kiran Desai

    Published by Random House Publishing Group

    PURCHASE

    When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive Sonia and Sunny apart.

    Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan. Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world.

    The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.

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