Half Gods

Half Gods gathers the exiled, the disappeared and the seekers in ten interlinked stories. At its centre are two brothers named after demigods from the Mahabharata, and a family still living with the aftershocks of its past.

The stories redraw the map of the world in unexpected ways. After an act of violence, a baby girl is renamed after a Hindu goddess but raised as a Muslim. A lonely butcher from Angola finds comfort in a family of refugees in New Jersey. A gentle entomologist in Sri Lanka discovers unexpected courage while searching for his missing son.

The collection is heartbreaking at times and fiercely inventive at others. It shows how parents, children and friends serve as unknowing mirrors to one another, and how their very human weaknesses, hopes and sorrows hint at a connection to the divine. It is Akil Kumarasamy's debut.