Published in 2006, The Inheritance of Loss is Kiran Desai's second novel. Desai wrote the book in the seven years following her 1998 debut, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. The story is set during the 1986 Gorkhaland Movement in Darjeeling and follows a diverse set of intergenerational characters. The novel spans India, the United States, and England while exploring the impacts of colonialism in the modern world.
The novel won numerous awards, including the 2006 Booker Prize, the 2006 Vodafone Crossword Book Award, and the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. In 2020, the novel was included on the list of the 12 best Indian novels "everyone needs to read" by The...