“A monumental achievement.” — Justin Taylor, The New York Times

The Immortal King Rao

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the National Book Critics’ Circle’s John Leonard Prize, the Colorado Book Awards, and the Tata Literature Live First Book Award

Longlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Prize

Winner of the Atta Galatta-Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize, the Times of India and JK Paper’s AutHer Awards, and Alta Magazine’s Rosebud Award for Fiction

Named a notable book of the year by the New York Times, NPR, Esquire, Vox, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and others

Named a New York Times Editors’ Choice

About the Novel

In an Indian village in the 1950s, a precocious child is born into a family of Dalit coconut farmers. King Rao will grow up to be the most accomplished tech CEO in the world and, eventually, the leader of a global, corporate-led government.

In a future in which the world is run by the Board of Corporations, King’s daughter, Athena, reckons with his legacy―literally, for he has given her access to his memories, among other questionable gifts.

With climate change raging, Athena has come to believe that saving the planet and its Shareholders will require a radical act of communion―and so she sets out to tell the truth to the world’s Shareholders, in entrancing sensory detail, about King’s childhood on a South Indian coconut plantation; his migration to the U.S. to study engineering in a world transformed by globalization; his marriage to the ambitious artist with whom he changed the world; and, ultimately, his invention, under self-exile, of the most ambitious creation of his life―Athena herself.

The Immortal King Rao, written by a former Wall Street Journal technology reporter, is a resonant debut novel obliterating the boundaries between literary and speculative fiction, the historic and the dystopian, confronting how we arrived at the age of technological capitalism and where our actions might take us next.

Reviews

“A monumental achievement: beautiful and brilliant, heartbreaking and wise, but also pitiless, which may be controversial to list among its virtues but is in fact essential to its success. Vara respects her reader and herself too much to yield to the temptation to console us. How rare these days as a reader ― and how bracing, in the finest way ― to encounter a novel that refuses to treat you like a child or a studio audience. If that were the only thing to love about ‘Rao,’ it would probably be enough. But … there’s also everything else." ― Justin Taylor, The New York Times

“A premonitory, daring book that lands somewhere between speculative fiction and bildungsroman, storytelling and fortune-telling.” ― Mallika Rao, New York Magazine’s Vulture

“A brilliant and beautifully written book about capitalism and the patriarchy, about Dalit India and digital America, about power and family and love.” — Alex Preston, The Observer

“Not to be missed.” — Publisher’s Weekly ⭐

“A sweeping, biting, elegant book for our time.” — Lydia Kiesling, The Millions

"In this richly imagined saga spanning past, present, and future, Vara brings us a visionary who makes the world in his image, and the strong-willed daughter whose life could be his final legacy. Vara’s brilliance is matched only by her heart, and this unforgettable debut will challenge what you think you know about genius, capitalism, consciousness, and what it means to be human." ― Anna North, author of Outlawed

"Utterly, thrillingly brilliant. From the first unforgettable page to the last, The Immortal King Rao is a form-inventing, genre-exploding triumph. Vauhini Vara’s bravura debut has reshaped my brain and expanded my heart." ― R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries

"Vara comes out the gate with a masterwork: a book that is three great novels in one – the tale of a thriving and chaotic Dalit clan in the first decades of independent India; an immigrant success story in ’80s America; and a dystopian nightmare of the post-Trump future." ― Karan Mahajan, author of The Association of Small Bombs

"The Immortal King Rao is an odyssey of the grandest scale, spanning over a century and charting a Dalit immigrant's rise to world power. Vauhini Vara fuses intricate family lore with the history of tech solutionism and capitalist demagoguery, pointing forward to a dangerously likely future of corporate dominion; she writes with the meticulous clarity of a longform journalist, the explosive force of a Trident missile, and the ambition of her own brilliant protagonists." ― Tony Tulathimutte, author of Private Citizens

“A fully imagined world: propulsive, prophetic, dizzying.” — Jeet Thayil, author of Names of the Women

“An astonishing debut. An amazing imagination. Vara's voice is thrilling, original, dynamic and ever-surprising as her characters move from world to world, from the real to the fantastic, examining the myriad contradictory shapes in which love can appear.” — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author of The Last Queen

“Mind-blowing, epic, and full of love, this speculative and historical fiction novel (what a combination!) is for fans of Battlestar Galactica and The MaddAddam Trilogy. The world Vara has built here unfolds slowly but coalesces in a complete and believable alternative reality where technology and capitalism stand in for humanity and democracy. I love the background of King Rao and his family coconut farm in India, and how the history of his ancestors blends with the dystopian science fiction of his, and his family’s, future. This is a phenomenal debut that will pull you in and make you think. I loved it!” — Samantha Kolber, Bear Pond Books, Montpelier, Vermont

“From its beginning in a coconut grove in 1950s India, to its conclusion on the fringes of a globalized corporate government, Vauhini Vara’s debut has one hand on the current moment and one on the future that is already knocking at our door. It is a sweeping family saga that probes the depths of the American Dream and the immigrant experience, all the while asking questions about the ethics of technology, the values of consumption, and what it truly means to be human.” — Rebecca Speas, One More Page Books, Arlington, Virginia