Limits of the World

The Chandaria family amp;mdash; emigrants from the Indian enclave of Nairobi amp;mdash; have managed to flourish in America. Premchand, the father, is a doctor who has worked doggedly to grow his practice and give his family security; his wife, Urmila, runs a business importing artisanal Kenyan crafts; and their son, Sunil, after quitting the pre-med track, has gotten accepted to a PhD program in philosophy at Harvard. But the parents have kept a very important secret from Sunil: his cousin, Bimal, is actually his older brother. And when this previously hidden history is revealed by an unforeseen accident, and the entire family is forced to return to Nairobi, Sunil reveals his own well-kept, explosive secret: his Jewish-American girlfriendamp;mdash;who has accompanied him to Kenyaamp;mdash;is, in fact, already his wife.

Spanning four generations and three continents, The Limits of the World illuminates the vast mosaic of cultural divisions and ethical considerations that shape the ways in which we judge one another's actions. A dazzling debut novel amp;mdash; written with rare empathy and insight amp;mdash; it is a powerful depiction of how we prevent ourselves, unwittingly and otherwise, from understanding the people we are closest to.