It is 1993 and Bombay is on the verge of being torn apart by racial violence. Ten-year- old Chamdi has rarely ventured outside his orphanage, and entertains an idyllic fantasy of what the city is like beyond its garden walls - a paradise he calls Kahunsha, “the city of no sadness.” But when he runs away to search for his long-lost father, he finds himself thrust into the chaos of the streets, alone, possessing only the blood-stained cloth he was left in as a baby. There Chamdi meets Sumdi and Guddi, brother and sister who beg in order to provide for their sick mother, and the three become fast friends. Fueled only by a desire to find his father and the dream that Bombay will someday become Kahunsha, Chamdi struggles for survival on its brutal streets. But when he is caught up in the beginnings of the savage violence that will soon engulf the city, his dreams confront reality. Moving, poignant, and wonderfully rich in the sights and sounds of Bombay,The Song of Kahunsha is a compelling story of hopes and dreams, and of the fragility of childhood innocence.
“The novel shocks and educates us about the degraded life of children on the streets of Bombay, and the fantasy of Kahunsha demonstrates the power of imagination in the face of adversity. {A} compelling work recalling Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner…” - Library Journal
”Anosh Irani… reveal{s} the tender heart of human need in his devastating yet surprisingly gentle novel…” - Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Irani is a gifted storyteller, and {The Song of Kahunsha}, Dickensian in its plot and its vivid prose, is as beautiful as it is heartbreaking.” - Booklist
“{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
“…{H}eartbreaking yet ultimately hopeful…Irani shows that beauty can be found even in the bleakest settings. Irani does such a good job of creating a living, breathing city that at times it is almost overwhelming.” - Quill & Quire
“{Irani} rewrites Dickens' Oliver Twist with his native Bombay replacing nineteenth-century London…. Pure storytelling.” - Toronto Star
“Evocative and colourful.” - The London Free Press
“A gripping and compassionate novel that will resonate long after readers have completed it...calls to mind Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance.” - Winnipeg Free Press
“Beautiful.... {It} vindicates the fragile but triumphant scope of childhood imagination with touching grace.” - Globe and Mail
{Chamdi's} relentless struggle to survive makes him one of this year's most unforgettable heroes.” - Edmonton Journal
“With understated skill, Anosh Irani tells such a darkly enchanting story of the abandoned children of Bombay that I felt swept away by their fate and entangled in the world's too believable cruelty towards the innocent. Irani's shocking tale unfolds with a macabre and terrifying beauty that is both heartbreaking and compelling.” - Wayson Choy, Author of All That Matters & The Jade Peony
“Comparisons to Oliver Twist are spurious - this novel is in a class by itself.” - Shauna Singh Baldwin