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Start giftingThe Cauliflower
This audiobook uses AI narration.
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Learn moreFrom Man Booker–shortlisted, IMPAC Award–winning author Nicola Barker comes an exuberant, multivoiced new novel mapping the extraordinary life and legacy of a nineteenth-century Hindu saint.
To the world, he is Sri Ramakrishna—godly avatar, esteemed spiritual master, beloved guru. To Rani Rashmoni, she of low caste and large inheritance, he is the Brahmin fated to defy tradition. But to Hriday, his nephew and longtime caretaker, he is just Uncle—maddening, bewildering Uncle, prone to entering trances at the most inconvenient of times, known to sneak out to the forest at midnight to perform dangerous acts of self-effacement, who must be vigilantly safeguarded not only against jealous enemies and devotees with ulterior motives but also against that most treasured yet insidious of sulfur-rich vegetables: the cauliflower.
Rather than puzzling the shards of history and legend together, Barker shatters the mirror again and rearranges the pieces. The result is a biographical novel viewed through a kaleidoscope. Dazzlingly inventive and brilliantly comic, irreverent, and mischievous, The Cauliflower delivers us into the divine playfulness of a twenty-first-century literary master.
Nicola Barker is the author of eleven novels, including The Yips (long-listed for the Man Booker Prize), Darkmans (short-listed for the Booker and the Ondaatje Prize and winner of the Hawthornden Prize), Clear (long-listed for the Booker), and Wide Open (winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and three story collections, including Love Your Enemies (winner of the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award). Her work has been translated into over a dozen languages. She lives in London.
Sneha Mathan is a voice actor and audiobook narrator. Her audiobook work has received several Earphones awards, and she is a three-time Audie Award finalist. She lives in Seattle.
Vikas Adam is a classically trained actor with numerous credits in stage, film, commercials, and television, in addition to his over two hundred recorded audiobooks. His narrations have garnered numerous awards and nominations, including AudioFile Earphones Awards, various Best of the Year lists, and the prestigious Audie Award. He was an inaugural inductee into the Audible Narrator Hall of Fame.
Reviews
“Vibrant, funny, garrulous, and lovely…It is a celebration of spirituality and faith…Perfectly balanced between clownish irreverence and hushed respect for the numinous.”
“Distinctively Barkeresque…Typically atypical, expectedly unexpected, and inexplicably good. She really is a genius.”
“Barker’s antic, irreverent historical novel examines the life of real-life spiritual leader Sri Ramakrishna…Beneath the jaunty surface, the novel explores important questions about the nature of religious experience.”
“Both deeply researched and imagination-drenched, and playful in language, tone, time line, and structure.”
“Respectful, playful, and often entertaining―though just as often puzzling. Barker’s fans will enjoy the outing, forgiving her quirks.”
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