Carnegie Endowment 84d ago

On this week’s show, Milan sits down with the novelist Karan Mahajan. Karan is an associate professor in Literary Arts at Brown University and the author of the books Family Planning and The Association of Small Bombs. Karan is also the author of a much-anticipated new novel, The Complex. Karan and Milan discussed the book at our first ever live Grand Tamasha event at Carnegie headquarters in Washington, DC on March 16. In The Complex, readers are introduced to the fictional Chopra family as they navigate the personal and political turmoil of late 1970s India. As each member of the family struggles to forge an identity in the shadow of patriarch SP Chopra’s legacy, buried tensions surface and rival visions of power, belonging, and ambition collide. Set against a nation in upheaval, The Complex traces the roots of many forces that continue to shape contemporary India—from political radicalization and shifting class structures to the pull of the global diaspora and the evolving meaning of family itself. The New York Times calls the book "magisterial” and writes that “[Mahajan's] work has always woven a subversive, contemporary sensibility into a traditional, almost 19th-century approach to form and style.” During the recording, Milan fielded written questions from audience members, and you’ll hear these as well on this week’s show. Like and subscribe to our channel: https://bit.ly/38sljlH The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace generates strategic ideas and independent analysis, supports diplomacy, and trains the next generation of international scholar-practitioners to help countries and institutions take on the most difficult global problems and advance peace. Visit our website: https://carnegieendowment.org/ Follow us on X: https://x.com/CarnegieEndow Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carnegieendow/