The Mango Season - Softcover

The Mango Season touches on a very human conflict with delicacy and humor. [This] is a lovely novel, filled with the small details and sensual evocations of life in India without neglecting the claustrophobic aspect of that life. (Washington Post)

The Mango Season is a lush and beautifully written novel from a highly acclaimed writer. With vivid descriptions and compelling characters, it takes the reader on a trip into the heart and soul of contemporary India. Priya Rao left India when she was twenty to study in America. Now, seven years later, she has returned for a visit to discover her parents are intent on arranging her marriage to a suitable Indian boy. She has arrived home in time for the harvesting of mangoes - the hottest time of the year and a time full of ritual and ceremony. As a child she had loved this season best but, after years away, Priya finds the heat of an Indian summer overwhelming and everything about India seems different - dirtier and more chaotic than she remembers. Her extended family are also consumed by talk of marriage - particularly the marriage of her uncle Anand, and his decision to marry not only for love but to marry a woman of a much lower caste. Priya can only guess at what reaction her own engagement would provoke if she were to reveal that she has left behind a fianc in America, a fianc of an entirely different race and religion.