London: Penguin / Hamish Hamilton, 2002. Hardcover. First Edition. Fine book in a Near Fine jacket. Pages lightly tanned. Spine straight and tight. Sticker from Giggles bookshop Madras to rear pastedown. Jacket clean with reading wear to top edge. Not from a library. No remainder mark. Not clipped. 481 pages.

This is the extraordinary story of a child conceived in a wild monsoon night, a boy destined to be an outsider, a man with many names and no name. Born into luxury but disinherited and cast out onto the streets of Agra, Pran Nath must become a chameleon. Chasing his fortune, he will travel from the red light district of Bombay to the green lawns of England to the unmapped African wilderness. He will play many different roles -- a young prize in a brothel, the adopted son of Scottish missionaries, the impeccably educated young Englishman headed for Oxford -- in order to find the role that will finally fit. Daring and riotously inventive, The Impressionist is an odyssey of self-discovery: a tale of the many lives one man can live and of the universal search for true identity.

Synopsis

Pran Nath Razdan, the boy who will become the Impressionist, was passed off by his Indian mother as the child of her husband, a wealthy man of a high caste. Pran lived a life of luxury just downriver from the Taj Mahal, but at fifteen, the news of Pran’s true parentage is revealed to his father and he is tossed out into the street—a pariah and an outcast. Thus begins an extraordinary, near mythical journey of a young man who must reinvent himself to survive—not once, but many times. From Victorian India to Edwardian London, from an expatriate community of black Americans in Paris to a hopeless expedition to study a lost tribe of Africa, Hari Kunzru’s unforgettable debut novel dazzles with its artistry and wit while it challenges with its insights into what it means to be Indian or English, black or white, and every degree that lies between.

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Details

Bookseller: Books of the World (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #: RWARE0000000674
Title: The Impressionist
Author: Hari Kunzru
Format/Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Used - Fine
Jacket Condition: Fine
Quantity Available: 1
Edition: First Edition
ISBN 10: 0241141699
ISBN 13: 9780241141694
Publisher: Penguin / Hamish Hamilton
Place of Publication: London
Date Published: 2002
Pages: 481
Size: 8vo
Keywords: fiction, psychological, ethnicity, identity, race, East Indians, England, Scotland, Britain, UK, India
Bookseller catalogs: India; Fiction; Asia; Britain; Race, Racism, Prejudice; Domestic and Family Fiction;

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Books of the World

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About Books of the World

Finding new homes for the library I collected over five decades of travel around the world.

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Remainder Mark: Usually an ink marking of some sort which indicates that the book was designated a remainder. In most cases, it can be found on...
First Edition: In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
Fine: A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
Jacket: Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
Tight: Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.
Spine: The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....