THE LOVERS

The Lovers is about a man in
search of a love story. This man, our narrator, is Kailash?a new immigrant,
eager to shine. His friends teasingly call him Kalashnikov and sometimes
AK-47, even AK. In his account of his years at a university in New York, AK takes
us through the bittersweet arc of youth and love. There is discovery and
disappointment. There are the brilliant women, Jennifer and Nina and Cai Yan.
There is the political texture of campus life and the charismatic professor
overseeing these young men and women, Ehsaan Ali (modelled on the real-life
Eqbal Ahmad). Manifest in AK?s first years and first loves is the wild
enthusiasm of youth, its idealism, chaotic desires and confusions.A decidedly
modern novel that melds story and reportage, anecdote and annotation, picture
and text, fragment and essay, The Lovers reminds us of the works of John
Berger and Teju Cole. Funny, meditative and shot through with waves of
longing, the book explores feelings of discomfort about cultural
misunderstandings and the lack of clarity between men and women. At heart
though, it is an investigation of love??love despite, or in spite of; love
beyond and across dividing lines?.