New Delhi [India]Feb. 4 (ANI/PRNewswire): HarperCollins India is delighted to announce the acquisition of award-winning writer-journalist Vauhini Vara’s highly anticipated debut novel about family, modernity and techno-capitalism – The Immortal King Rao – which will will be released in India and the United States on May 3, 2022. To be released under the prestigious Fourth Estate label, this novel blurs the lines between literary and speculative fiction and is a vast saga that unfolds across eras and continents – from plantations from the coconuts of southern India in the 1950s to the globalization arena of America in the near future – marrying the history of the Dalits, the digital age and dystopia.
The book is already creating a lot of buzz and is one of the Vulture books we look forward to reading in 2022.
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One of Vogue India’s season debut About the Book –
In a 1950s Indian village, a precocious child is born into a family of Dalit coconut farmers. King Rao will become the world’s most accomplished tech CEO and eventually the head of a corporate-led global government. In a future where the world is ruled by the Board of Corporations, King’s daughter, Athena, reckon with his inheritance – literally, because he gave her access to his memories, among other dubious gifts. With climate change raging, Athena has come to believe that saving the planet and its shareholders will require a radical act of communion – and so she sets out to tell the truth to the world’s shareholders, in spellbinding sensory detail, about the King’s childhood in a South. Indian coconut grove; his migration to the United States to study engineering in a world transformed by globalization; his marriage to the ambitious artist with whom he changed the world; and, ultimately, his invention, under self-exile, of the most ambitious creation of his life – Athena herself.
The Immortal King Rao, written by a former Wall Street Journal tech reporter, is a resounding debut novel that blurs the lines between literary and speculative fiction, the historical and the dystopian, confronting how we came to the age of capitalism. technology and where our actions might take us next. Speaking of the book, Vauhini Vara says, “In 2009, when I was studying creative writing in graduate school, I was on a train with my dad, and he was teasing me because I hadn’t started a book yet. novel. I said, Give me an idea, then! And he said, “Write about the coconut grove!” He was referring to the coconut grove in Andhra Pradesh where he grew up – and that’s what is becoming the germ of the idea that became The Immortal King Rao in India has been a dream of mine, and learning that I could do it with Rahul Soni and the legendary Fourth Estate has been one of the greatest thrills and honors of this whole process.”
Rahul Soni, Editor-in-Chief at HarperCollins India, said: “This is a novel that has been talked about in international editorial circles ever since the manuscript was first submitted, and I am delighted that Vauhini Vara has finally decided that HarperCollins and Fourth Estate were the Immortal King Rao in India is the perfect home. It is rare to find a novel – let alone a first novel – as ambitious and captivating, as daring and as accessible, as urgent and as topical as this one. Through the story of the rise and fall of its eponymous protagonist, it traces the stories of immigration, capitalism and technology that have led to our current moment of economic and environmental crises, and ventures to guess what what the future may hold – for the world and for the human species. If you want to understand where we are and where we might be headed, read The Immortal King Rao.” Udayan Mitra, Executive Editor at HarperCollins India, says, “The Immortal King Rao is a stunning debut novel that tells the story of our history, our present and our (speculative) future Vauhini Vara is a wonderful new literary voice and one of the most anticipated novels of the year We at HarperCollins India are very excited to publish The Immortal King Rao under the prestigious Fourth Estate brand – I can confidently say this is a staple in the year India turns seventy-five.”
Advance Praise for The Immortal King Rao – “Vara walks out the door with a masterpiece: a book that is three great novels in one – the story of a prosperous and chaotic Dalit clan in the early decades of India independent; an immigrant success story in ’80s America and a dystopian nightmare of the post-Trump future.” — Karan Mahajan, author of The Association of Little Bombs
“A brilliant and beautifully written book about capitalism and patriarchy, about Dalit India and digital America, about power, family and love.” – Alex Preston, The Observer “A demanding writer for the digital age, journalist Vara makes her debut with a soaring novel that marries family saga with biotech satire…Vara has a knack for humanizing the unseen work that goes on behind our screens. Who, if anyone, can truly separate from the digital ties that bind us?” – Jessica Jacolbe, New York Magazine (Vulture)
“A radical, biting and elegant book for our times…that explores technology, race, class, politics and power.” – Lydia Kiesling, The Millions “Quite, thrillingly brilliant. From unforgettable first page to last, The Immortal King Rao is a form-inventing, genre-exploding triumph. Vauhini Vara’s bravura debut reshaped my brain and widened my heart.” — RO Kwon, author of The Incendiary
About the Author – Vauhini Vara worked as a technology reporter for the Wall Street Journal and as a business editor for the New Yorker. Her fiction has been honored with the O. Henry Prize and the Rona Jaffe Foundation. Of Dalit origin, she lives in Fort Collins, Colorado.
HarperCollins Publishers India is a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers. HarperCollins India publishes some of the best writers from the Indian subcontinent and around the world, releasing around 200 new books every year, with a print and digital catalog of over 2,000 titles spread across 10 editions. Its authors have won almost all major literary awards including Man Booker Prize, JCB Prize, DSC Prize, New India Foundation Prize, Atta Galatta Prize, Shakti Bhatt Prize, Gourmand Cookbook Prize, Publishing Next Prize , the Tata Literature Live Award, Gaja Capital Business Book Award, BICW Award, Sushila Devi Award, Prabha Khaitan Woman’s Voice Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and Crossword Book Award. HarperCollins India has received the Publisher of the Year award four times: at Publishing Next in 2015 and at Tata Literature Live! in 2016, 2018 and 2021. HarperCollins India also represents some of the best publishers in the world including Egmont, Oneworld, Harvard University Press, Bonnier Zaffre, Usborne, Dover and Lonely Planet.
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