Written from within the skin of India, The Alchemy of
Desire is a
novel quite unlike any other, with a power and weight of
feeling one almost never encounters in contemporary literature. It celebrates the manic spirit of a country in a time of great change and also offers, in searing, lucid prose, a deeply sensual and moving meditation on the nature of
desire, history, truth and art. Set against the brilliantly drawn backdrop of India at the turn of the millennium, The Alchemy of Desire tells the story of a young couple, penniless but gloriously in love obsessed with each other, they move from a small town to the big city, where the narrator who dreams of being a writer works feverishly on a
novel, stopping only to feed his ceaseless desire for his beautiful wife.