Harpercollins The End Of Karma: Hope And Fury Among India'S Young - Hardcover

Somini Sengupta emigrated from Calcutta as a child in 1975 and grew up in California. Returning thirty years later to India as the first Indian-American bureau chief for The New York Times, she found a vastly different country: one defined as much by aspiration - at least by its illusion - as by the strictures of sex and caste.

“Gorgeously written. . . . Sengupta lays out the enormous challenges India faces. But she remains optimistic that the young generation will continue to push the country toward more meaningful progress.”
- Seattle Times

“[Sengupta] marvels at the resulting ambition and ingenuity, while also observing the power of residual caste and gender prejudices.”
- The New Yorker

“Thoughtful and timely...Sengupta balances strong impartial analysis with emotional investment.”
- Wall Street Journal

“Portentous...Returning to a transformed nation--its economies in bloom, its cities abuzz--[Sengupta] sensed a fresh impatience of aspiration....Vibrant.”
- New York Times Book Review

“Sengupta does a wonderful job of detailing the distinct lives of seven young individuals struggling to fulfill their educational and economic dreams...Highly recommended.”
- Kirkus (starred review)

“Anyone who imagines that India today is simply a land of IT companies and call centers should read this book. Somini Sengupta sees the new India in all its complexity―its gated towers and remote villages; its kidnapped maids and chief ministers; those who want to remake it into a Hindu nation and those who care only about getting ahead. India is home to nearly a fifth of the world’s people―few places will be more important to the shape of the twenty-first century. The End of Karma, with its vivid storytelling and intimate portraits of India’s younger generation, is a riveting vision of the future.”
- Larissa MacFarquhar, author of Strangers Drowning

“The End of Karma brilliantly opens the door into the world of the striving young men and women of the new India as they try to shed India’s past and invent their own future. Somini Sengupta’s chosen characters are so vividly drawn and so sensitively reported.”
- Tina Brown

“The End of Karma is the essential beginning for any reader who wants to understand the future of the world’s biggest democracy. With meticulously researched, grippingly told stories about youth in today’s India, Sengupta’s quest to understand her daughter’s birthplace seized me like no other book coming from the country today.”
- Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found