The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a 2025 novel by Kiran Desai. With the narrative taking place mostly between 1996 and 2002, the novel tells the story of Sonia and Sunny, both Indian immigrants to the United States, who have a chance encounter on a train in India. The meeting leads to a romance between the two young characters.
The novel was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize. The judges described the novel as an epic of love and family, spanning generations and countries, that is the most "ambitious and accomplished" work by Desai.[2]
Narrative
Sonia is an aspiring novelist who has just completed her college studies in Vermont. She moves to New York City to be closer to her boyfriend, who is a much older accomplished artist. The relationship soon becomes dysfunctional and Sonia leaves him, returning to her family in India. Sunny is a young journalist from New York City who works as a copy editor for the Associated Press. He has an American girlfriend. He moved to the United States to flee his overbearing mother. The two know of each other, as each of their grandparents had tried to arrange a marriage between them a few years earlier, believing both were single.
The two young travelers meet on an overnight train in India and a budding relationship forms between them and soon blossoms into a romance.
Reception
Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, described the novel as Romeo and Juliet for the modern, globalized world. Publishers Weekly also stated that the novel is narratively expansive, not just a romance or family saga, but exploring many other intriguing themes.[3]Kirkus Reviews stated that the vignettes in the novel, of Sonia and Sonny, or of their family members, beautifully coalesce with the central themes of the work.[4]
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