Library Live at Labyrinth will host Akhil Sharma reading from his new book, A Life of Adventure and Delight (W.W. Norton $24.95) at Labyrinth Books on Wednesday, July 12 at 6 p.m.

Hailed as a storyteller whose fiction is “a glowing work of art” (Wall Street Journal), Akhil Sharma is possessed of a narrative voice “as hypnotic as those found in the pages of Dostoyevsky” (The Nation). A Life of Adventure and Delight contains eight stories that focus on Indian protagonists at home and abroad. Labyrinth Books and the Princeton Public Library have joined forces to host a reading and conversation with the author.

A young woman in an arranged marriage awakens one day surprised to find herself in love with her
husband. A retired divorcée tries to become the perfect partner by reading women’s magazines. A man’s longstanding contempt for his cousin suddenly shifts inward when he witnesses his cousin caring for a sick woman. Says David Sedaris, “There’s a great duality to these stories: simple but complex, funny enough to laugh out loud at but emotionally devastating, foreign yet familiar. What an exciting and original writer this is, and what a knock-out collection.”

Akhil Sharma is the author of Family Life, a New York Times Best Book of the Year and the winner of the International DUBLIN Literary Award and the Folio Prize. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Best American Short Stories, and O. Henry Award Stories. A native of Delhi, he lives in New York City and teaches English at Rutgers University–Newark.

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