Baumgartner's Bombay

A "beautifully written, richly textured, and haunting story" (Chaim Potok)

Baumgartner's Bombay is Anita Desai's classic novel of the Holocaust era, a story of profound emotional wounds of war and its exiles. The novel follows Hugo Baumgartner as he flees Nazi Germany -- and his Jewish heritage -- for India, only to be imprisoned as a hostile alien and then released to Bombay at war's end. In this tale of a man who, "like a figure in a Greek tragedy . . . seems to elude his destiny" (New Leader), Desai's "capacious intelligence, her unsentimental compassion" (New Republic) reach their full height.

"A subject new...to English fiction—the experience of Jewish refugees in India." - New York Review of Books

"Beautifully written, richly textured . . . [a] haunting story." - Chaim Potok

"A triumph." - New Republic

"Desai's artful control of her narrative's agenda results in a compelling fiction." - Publishers Weekly

"Desai merits strong praise for her compellingly realistic descriptions of Indian life." - Library Journal

"A daring and colorful novel from a superb observer of the human race" - New York Times Book Review