The Conquest of Kailash

novel about cruelty and marginalization, and the struggle to find meaning in a world

of mounting prejudice and false belief.

Gay but still closeted and missing his wife Helen — who has fled their home to

become a Buddhist nun — Ali Akbar returns in old age from California to India.

At the Deer Park where the Buddha gave his first sermon, he comes across a flyer

that promises to teach him how to find love again. After being assaulted outside the

park at a parade led by a religious fundamentalist, Ali attempts to make good on the

promise of the flyer, traveling from Benares up towards the icy heights of Mount

Kailash. Along the way, Ali is forced to come to terms with the relentless sexual

abuse he suffered in childhood in India, as well as his personal failures, including his

expulsion from Cambridge University, his failed career hopes, and most of all, his

relationships with Helen and their daughter Homa. Navigating between competing

fundamentalisms that mark a time of social collapse, Ali tries, in the time that he

has left, to seize that last chance to find love again -- even if it takes a very different

form from what he expected.

Steeped in the philosophies of classical Greece and India, and layered with colorful

travelogues in India, England, and the US, The Conquest of Kailash is written in Mani’s

characteristically atmospheric and humane style that has attracted readers worldwide.