Hari Kunzru — The Impressionist

Not Specified 2002 Paperback, 496pp. This is the extraordinary story of a child conceived in a wild monsoon night, a boy destined to be an outsider, a man with many names and no name. Born into luxury but disinherited and cast out onto the streets of Agra, Pran Nath must become a chameleon. Chasing his fortune, he will travel from the red light district of Bombay to the green lawns of England to the unmapped African wilderness. He will play many different roles -- a young prize in a brothel, the adopted son of Scottish missionaries, the impeccably educated young Englishman headed for Oxford -- in order to find the role that will finally fit. Daring and riotously inventive, The Impressionist is an odyssey of self-discovery: a tale of the many lives one man can live, and of the universal search for true identity. (ISBN: 9780241141755). Good.