HULLABALOO IN THE GUAVA ORCHARD

New York City, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 209 pages. The author's debut novel. Now considered a contemporary classic. The first appearance of the title in the United States. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The DJ design by Charles Rue Woods is splendid, utilizing an adaptation of traditional Indian figurative art by John Martinez. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Kiran Desai's "Hullabaloo In The Guava Orchard". An unqualified pleasure. "A wild, sad, humorous story about the oldest son of an eccentric family in a small Indian village. Born at the moment a crash of thunder signals the end of a long, hot drought, Sampath grows into a disappointing young man. After he loses a job, Sampath's mother attempts to comfort him with a guava, but it explodes as Sampath is admiring its green coolness, compelling him to flee his family and village to an abandoned orchard, climb into a guava tree, and stay there" (Library Journal). "Lush and intricately imagined" (Salman Rushdie). Critical praise deemed Desai's beautifully written first outing worthy of comparison with the work of such giants as Salman Rushdie, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and Shashi Tharoor. If her name rings a bell, it's because it does: Kiran is the daughter of Anita Desai. An absolute "must-have" title for Kiran Desai collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in blue ink-pen on the title page by Kiran Desai. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. Laid-in is a pristine copy of the Souvenir Announcement of the event during which her signature was obtained. This title is a contemporary classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing (American) still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have all kinds of inexplicable flaws for a relatively new book: Creasing, soiling, tears, bumps, you name it even if the dealers themselves do not. Yet they are priced as though they had collectible value. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. Winner of the Booker Prize in 2006 and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2007 for "The Inheritance of Loss". One of the most brilliant writers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER KIRAN DESAI TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0871137119.