Family Life - Hardcover

Akhil Sharma was born in Delhi in India and emigrated to the USA in 1979. His stories have been published in the New Yorker and in Atlantic Monthly, and have been included in The Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Prize Collections. His first novel, An Obedient Father, won the 2001 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. He was named one of Granta's 'Best of Young American Novelists' in 2007.

“Outstanding...Every page is alive and surprising, proof of [Sharma’s] huge, unique talent.”
- David Sedaris

“Riveting... Sharma is compassionate but unflinching.”
- Sonali Deraniyagala, The New York Times Book Review

“Dark humor twines through Sharma’s unforgettable story of survival and its costs.”
- Mary Pols, People

“Surface simplicity and detachment are the hallmarks of this novel, but hidden within its small, unembellished container are great torrents of pity and grief. Sedulously scaled and crafted, it transforms the chaos of trauma into a glowing work of art.”
- The Wall Street Journal

“I lost all track of time while I was reading it, and felt by the end that I’d returned from a great and often harrowing journey... To my own surprise, I found myself renewed after reading it, and imbued with a feeling of hope.”
- John Wray, Salon

“Sharma spent 13 years writing this slim novel, and the effort shows in each lucid sentence and heartbreaking detail.”
- Stephen Lee, Entertainment Weekly

“A heartbreaking novel-from-life... [Sharma] takes after Hemingway, as each word of his brilliant novel feels deliberate, and each line is quietly moving.”
- Maddie Crum, Huffington Post

“There's nothing like the pleasure of being devastated by a short novel. Like Jhumpa Lahiri, Akhil Sharma writes of the Indian immigrant experience with great empathy and a complete lack of sentimentality. Family Life is a dark and thrilling accomplishment by a wildly gifted writer.”
- Ann Packer

“Family Life is a terse, devastating account of growing up as a brilliant outsider in American culture. It is a nearly perfect novel.”
- Edmund White

“Sharma is a rare master at charting the frailties and failures, the cruelties and rages, the altering moods and contradictions, whims and perversities of a tragic cast of characters. But this most unsentimental writer leaves the reader, finally and surprisingly, moved.”
- Kiran Desai

“An immigrant story like no other: funny and dark, unrelenting and above all, true.”
- Nell Freudenberger