Bedi and Sushma's marriage is arranged. When they first meet, they stumble through a faltering conversation about happiness and hope and agree to go in search of these things together. But even after their children Selena, Tara and Rohan are grown up and have their own families, Bedi and Sushma are still searching.
Years later, the siblings attempt to navigate life without their parents. As they travel to the Ganges to unite their father's ashes with the opaque water, it becomes clear that each of them has inherited the same desire to understand what makes a life happy, the same confusion about this question and the same enduring hope.
A Person is a Prayer plumbs the depths of the spaces between family members and the silence that rushes in like a flood when communication deteriorates. It is about how short a life is and how the choices we make can ripple down generations.
Publisher: Oldcastle Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780857305855
Number of pages: 288
Dimensions: 216 x 135 mm
Equal parts funny and touching... A multigenerational story reflecting on the transient connections between generations across time and place, and the nature of home and memory - GQ (Best Books of 2024)
Soulful, funny and daring... A Person is a Prayer is a plaintive and refreshing take on a cross-generational saga... From the bursting white rapids of the Ganges, to the nail-rapping table tops of a Hounslow kitchen, Kalia proves himself a transportive and stylish novelist, sensitive to the precious, emotional tissues that bind a family unit, and just how easily these can disintegrate when put under inspection - Vogue (Best Books of 2024)
Crisp narration and lyricism ... Kalia's take is refreshingly nuanced and - thank God - funny - Esquire (The Biggest Books Landing on Your Reading List in 2024)
This rich debut... has poignancy and focus. Telling the story over the course of three single days spanning six decades, [Kalia] interrogates the fundamental question of what makes a life happy through characters all striving for a better future - Observer
A Person is a Prayer crafts a binding narrative around the quest for happiness through the nuanced characters of Bedi and Sushma... Delving into the ephemeral nature of life that echoes ubiquitously, the book encourages readers to pursue a life filled with hope - Harpers Bazaar (India)
A Person is a Prayer is a sad but engaging read about family, grief and death. Told from the perspective of Bedi, Sushma and their 3 children, it begins with an arranged marriage, told from Bedi's perspective.... More
A sad story in many ways about how life can seem lonely and disappointing and with a constant need to find a deeper meaning and truth. But a gently told story about families, what we want and need from them and a... More
A beautiful, moving debut!
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