DIVWriting of Samrat Upadhyay’s debut story collection, critics raved: “like a Buddhist Chekhov . . . speak s] to common truths . . . startlingly good” (San Francisco Chronicle) and “subtle and spiritually complex” (New York Times). Upadhyay’s first novel showcases his finest writing and his signature themes. The Guru of Love is a moving and important story — important for what it illuminates about the human need to love as well as lust, and for the light it shines on the political situation in Nepal and elsewhere.brRamchandra is a math teacher earning a low wage and living in a small apartment with his wife and two children. Moonlighting as a tutor, he engages in an illicit affair with one of his tutees, Malati, a beautiful, impoverished young woman who is also a new mother. She provides for him what his wife, who comes from a privileged background, does not: desire, mystery, and a simpler life. Complicating matters are various political concerns and a small city bursting with the conflicts of modernization, a static government, and a changing population. Just as the city must contain its growing needs, so must Ramchandra learn to accommodate both tradition and his very modern desires.brAbsolutely absorbing yet deceptively simple, this novel cements Upadhyay’s emerging status as one of our most exciting new writers./divDIVThere is an international fraternity of artists of the middle-class. What animates these artists’ moral vision is above all compassion. The universality of this class and those themes is demonstrated in Samrat Upadhyay’s first novel, The Guru of Love.brThe New York Times Book ReviewbrbrThe Guru of Love effectively weaves together the complicated dichotmies of man and mistress, love and lust, tradition and modernity… USA TodaybrbrReads like a graceful, page-turning mixture of stirring romance and social commentary. -Entertainment Weekly Entertainment WeeklybrbrA triump?Ð