Praise for Anosh Irani’s
THE SONG OF KAHUNSHA

“Direct and simple rather than elliptical, literal more than metaphorical, The Song of Kahunsha addresses the awful savageries and indignities of India within the focus of Bombay, but it escapes being overwhelmed by what it depicts because of its moral impulse…. Chamdi, who has always felt that thinking makes things possible, is given his epiphany in a beautiful final scene by the sea, and the novel … vindicates the fragile but triumphant scope of childhood imagination with touching grace.”

—The Globe and Mail

“Evocative and colourful.”

—The London Free Press

“[Irani] re-writes Dickens’s Oliver Twist with [his] native Bombay replacing 19th century London…. Pure storytelling…. The novel’s narrative encompasses more than gritty realism-that grit is counter-balanced by the wistfulness of Chamdi’s imagination, constructed on the basis of what beauty does strike his eye.”

—The Toronto Star

“[Chamdi’s] relentless struggle to survive makes him one of this year’s most unforgettable heroes.”

—Edmonton Journal

“No, this isn’t Oliver Twist, though it very well could be…. Written in succinct, understated prose, the narrative evokes the chaos of street life as well as the richness of Chamdi’s inner world…. Irani has written a gripping and compassionate novel that will resonate long after readers have completed it…. It calls to mind Rohinton Mistry’s epic about injustices of India’s caste system, A Fine Balance.”

—Winnipeg Free Press

“Irani’s melodies in The Song of Kahunsha are at once bright and melancholic, his characters and senses as sharp as tusks and his plot as lithe as children running.”

—National Post