The Limits of the World
2019
First Published
3.39
Average Rating
238
Number of Pages
The Chandaria family―emigrants from the Indian-enclave of Nairobi―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 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 his Jewish-American girlfriend, who has accompanied him to Kenya, 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―written with rare empathy and insight―it is a powerful depiction of how we prevent ourselves, unwittingly and otherwise, from understanding the people we are closest to.
Avg Rating
3.39
Number of Ratings
324
5 STARS
15%
4 STARS
33%
3 STARS
32%
2 STARS
16%
1 STARS
4%
goodreads
Author
Jennifer Acker
Author · 4 books
Jennifer Acker is founder and editor in chief of The Common. Her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, Guernica, The Yale Review, and Ploughshares, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches writing and editing at Amherst College, where she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and organizes LitFest. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband. The Limits of the World is her debut novel.
