The Last Song of Dusk [Hardcover]

At the end of his debut novel The Last Song of Dusk, self-styled Bombaywallah Siddharth Shanghvi lists the artists to whom he owes a "debt of music": Bach and Elgar jostle with John Barry and Dido. An equally eclectic and unexpected range of melodies play key roles in this magical, moving tale of love, friendship and dark desire.

Anuradha--the latest in a family line of females gifted with magical songs arrives in Bombay to test the sensitivity of her betrothed, Dr Vardhmaan Gandharva. Passing his test in the nick of time, the newlyweds enjoy an extended honeymoon, spending sultry evenings on their bedroom balcony listening to music and waltzing in tune with their hearts. Their passion for one another protects them from the harsh realities of life, until a stormy night threatens to wrench them apart.

Returning to her family in Udaipur, Anuradha meets the feline orphan Nandini, who has an extraordinary gift for painting her subject's souls and an insatiable appetite for Yeats, a hunger that will one day rise up to haunt her. Back in Bombay the love-worn couple and the precocious artist move into a house and friendships are forged both true and false and the words of Anuradha's mother "in this life, there is no mercy" ring through their lives and those around them. With a gift for epic story-telling akin to Rushdie and Marquez--Siddharth Shanghvi's stunning debut is full of promise. His lyrical prose skilfully blends magical references with stark realism. The Last Song of Dusk is a wise and intuitive novel about the many and varied ways in which human beings love, live and forgive, told with humour, passion and great understanding. --Carey Green

'Surrealism and magic are mixed with the more everyday traumas of life and love. This is a larger than life story with a definite Bollywood feel to it...The main characters are well drawn, in all their exuberant eccentricity, and their merciless story makes for an adventurous read.' (WATERSTONES BOOKS QUARTERLY )

'The recent spate of magic-realism novels by writers with one foot in the Raj has been an engaging cultural seam...Shanghvi offers a little something extra... Like Kunzru, Shanghvi places his characters in historically auspicious circumstances, as if the voice of modernity has entered a time machine.' (i-D magazine (March 2004) )

'this is a modern fairy tale about love and kismet that touches all the senses.' (COMPANY (April 2004) )

'[a] colourful first novel...what begins as an erotic fairy tale grows into an exploration of love and loss, sexuality and innocence, friendship and solitude...Shanghvi's loose, poetic style, [is] cut with a dash of magical realism...Shanghvi's story has eloquent insights into the nature of love.' (Su Lin Lewis TLS (5.3.04) )

'[a] magical debut..Madcap characters shimmy across the pages, throwing out slangy witticisms with insouciant charm, but underneath the glitz the mood is mythically melancholy. Delicious.' (Eithne Farry ELLE (April '04) )

'A gently magical taste of India.' (MIRROR (12.3.04) )

'the novel is beautifully paced, exploring huge themes - fate, death, lasting love, vengeance, ambition, acceptance and - via tiny moments - the trickiness of life. The author twists words mercilessly, his choice of language veering between delicate beauty and raucous irreverence. And there's some extraordinarily fantastic, surprising writing about sexual organs: read it and weep.' **** (Angela Jackson INK )

'The magical tale of an Indian family dealing with love, loss and long forgotten secrets.' *** (HEAT (27 March - 2 April) )

'[an] exuberhant performance, part of the post-magical realist trend in Indo-English fiction - with its fantasy, pastiche and satire, and tendency to turn every seed of imagintion into a towering tree...Shanghvi's extravagant prose teems with adjectives, adverbs [and] personifications.' (Aamer Hussein INDEPENDENT (9.4.04) )

'A mixture of magical realism, tragi-comedy, and prose poetry, his debut novel sweeps readers into a tale as old as time, populated by eccentrically beautiful characters...A sure shot on the best-seller list.' (GOOD BOOK GUIDE (1/4/04) )

'A promising debut novel, THE LAST SONG OF DUSK is a vivid picture of love and loss in colonial India.' (Jay Richardson THE LIST (1.4.04) )

'the arrival of a new voice likely to cause a stir in the style of the impressive debuts of Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai and Hari Kunzru.' (WESTERN DAILY PRESS (27.3.04) )

'[a] magical tale...The whole book sparkles with energy, and is by turns cheeky, funny and achingly sad. Reading it is like appreciating a highly skilled tightrope walker: one false move and the whole edifice of magic and invention would come crashing down, but Shanghvi is a sure-footed narrator and never falters. He is not afraid to have his characters talk of karma and dharma, kismet, love and the meaning of life, in passages of tender lyricism that make this a story to treasure.' (Joanna Hines LITERARY REVIEW (May 2004) )

'The guru of sex' (TIME OF INDIA )

'Feral, hednoistic . . .a refreshing dawn to the genre of the new Indian novella' (THE ASIAN AGE )

'A compelling read. . .told in lush, erotic prose . .. ' (INDIA ABROAD )

'Shanghvi's magical realism is for the reader who can suspend disbelief and is carried away on the wings of his words and astounding imagination . . .(his) words hold everything together as they do a divine dance page after page' (SUNDAY MID-DAY )

'the author writes most beautifully and atmospherically.' (Glen Baker MORNING STAR (19.4.04) )

'LAST SONG [OF DUSK] displays a vivid and fertile imagination, combined with a deeply romantic sensibility.' (Veena (May issue) )

'THE LAST SONG OF DUSK is one novel every self respecting book worm will want to experience.' (DESI (1.6.04) )