<p> In turn-of-the-millennium India, a penniless would-be writer halts work on his novel only to feed his ceaseless desire for his beautiful wife. Then a chance occurrence moves the lovers to a sprawling old house in a mist-shrouded spur of the lower Himalayas, where a set of diaries written by a glamorous American adventuress is uncovered during renovations. Her words irresistibly draw the writer away from his beloved, thrusting him through the hole of history into another world and time, revealing dark secrets and overturning all certainties. </p> <p> Inventive, playful, heartbreaking, brimming with ideas and memorable characters, <i>The Alchemy of Desire</i> is a major literary work by one of the most significant new voices of a generation. </p>