A mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, Manil Suri’s debut novel, The Death of Vishnu, became an international bestseller. He claims that writing is how he escapes the horror of being a mathematician, yet is known to complain to his academic colleagues that mathematics is his only escape from the horror of being a writer. “In The Age of Shiva India’s birth as a new nation parallels a woman’s complex psychological journey confronting tradition and modernity,” writes The Inheritance of Loss author Kiran Desai, adding, “I read this marvelous book in one sitting.”