The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny has received endless acclaim since its release in 2025, and for good reason. Kiran Desai is the author behind this profound Booker Prize shortlist which took roughly 20 years to write. This year also marks the 20th anniversary of her 2006 Booker Prize winner, “The Inheritance of Loss”. Desai is an expert on writing about the immigrant experience, or rather, on depicting through her writing that a singular immigrant experience does not exist. To those who have left home only to return again, this book is for you.
Sonia is a college student and aspiring novelist at a liberal arts college in Vermont, far from her home and her family in Hauz Khas, Delhi. Sunny lives in New York City as an employee of the Associated Press, content to be separated by continents from his mother. Sonia, Sunny, and their families share a lack of luck, a yearning gaze to the West, and a profound sense of loneliness. Throughout the years, generational trauma comes to light, rearranging familial patterns and creating animosity. Meanwhile, underneath the beauty of the landscape which traverses Italy, Mexico, and the United States, racism and corruption runs rampant. Sonia and Sunny struggle to reconcile their new realities with their true selves. Are they American, Indian, or are they something else entirely? A cloud, a shadow, an eye within an eye.
I must say that any attempt at a review or summary of this book is a failed one. The only thing to do is brave the thick binding and come out on the other side a little more enlightened. Before reading this book, I was stuck in a pattern of reading shorter novels as a means of quick entertainment and escape. I did not feel I had the perseverance to pick up these 600-some pages and make it to the end. But I have come to learn that working out complex character arcs and surrealist plot points makes reaching the end of a book that much more satisfying. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny tells a story so intriguing, so fatalistic yet real. Call it magical realism, call it literary fiction, all I know is that every word drips with meaning, intention, and beauty.
reviewed by Abbie Lockridge
