A New York Times Editors’ Choice • A New Yorker Best Book of the Year So Far • A Most Anticipated Book of 2026: The Washington Post, Vulture, Lit Hub, The Millions, Chicago Review of Books
‘A sweeping tale of political machinations, family drama, betrayal and social transformation.’
—The New York Times’s ‘32 Novels We’re Excited About This Spring’
‘[A] magisterial performance. . . Mahajan is a confident, ambitious and increasingly important writer.’
—Jonathan Dee, The New York Times Book Review
‘A testament to Mahajan’s genius. . . . Beautiful and unforgettable’
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
A brilliant, sweeping tour de force moving between the US and modern India, following the illicit liaisons, real estate dramas, political ambitions, and mortal betrayals of one prominent Delhi family — from the author of the National Book Award finalist The Association of Small Bombs
In a sprawling complex in Delhi, the sons and daughters of SP Chopra, one of India's political architects, live together vying for influence in a family shaped by the great man's legacy. By the late 1970s, his descendants are scrambling to define their own futures in a still-young nation on the brink of transformation.
Sachin Chopra leaves for America, with his bride Gita following not long after, as the newlyweds are eager to forge their own lives beyond the pressures of the family compound. Yet Delhi remains an inescapable force, one that keeps pulling them back, even as Gita is menaced by Sachin’s predatory uncle, Laxman. A man of restless ambition, Laxman ascends through the ranks of a rising Hindu nationalist movement, caught between his political aspirations and his personal transgressions. Meanwhile, Vibha, his sister, tries to keep the peace and the reputation of the family intact even as she wrestles with her own exile.
As India erupts in violence and long-buried secrets come to light, the embattled Chopras must reckon with the cost of power, the weight of tradition, and the shifting nature of love and allegiance. Equal parts brilliant family saga and piercing political drama, The Complex is a virtuosic novel of revenge and redemption, ambition and undoing, loyalty and love, by one of the most lauded voices in contemporary fiction.
Genre: Literary Fiction
‘A sweeping tale of political machinations, family drama, betrayal and social transformation.’
—The New York Times’s ‘32 Novels We’re Excited About This Spring’
‘[A] magisterial performance. . . Mahajan is a confident, ambitious and increasingly important writer.’
—Jonathan Dee, The New York Times Book Review
‘A testament to Mahajan’s genius. . . . Beautiful and unforgettable’
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
A brilliant, sweeping tour de force moving between the US and modern India, following the illicit liaisons, real estate dramas, political ambitions, and mortal betrayals of one prominent Delhi family — from the author of the National Book Award finalist The Association of Small Bombs
In a sprawling complex in Delhi, the sons and daughters of SP Chopra, one of India's political architects, live together vying for influence in a family shaped by the great man's legacy. By the late 1970s, his descendants are scrambling to define their own futures in a still-young nation on the brink of transformation.
Sachin Chopra leaves for America, with his bride Gita following not long after, as the newlyweds are eager to forge their own lives beyond the pressures of the family compound. Yet Delhi remains an inescapable force, one that keeps pulling them back, even as Gita is menaced by Sachin’s predatory uncle, Laxman. A man of restless ambition, Laxman ascends through the ranks of a rising Hindu nationalist movement, caught between his political aspirations and his personal transgressions. Meanwhile, Vibha, his sister, tries to keep the peace and the reputation of the family intact even as she wrestles with her own exile.
As India erupts in violence and long-buried secrets come to light, the embattled Chopras must reckon with the cost of power, the weight of tradition, and the shifting nature of love and allegiance. Equal parts brilliant family saga and piercing political drama, The Complex is a virtuosic novel of revenge and redemption, ambition and undoing, loyalty and love, by one of the most lauded voices in contemporary fiction.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Epic in scope, wonderous in its summoning of distinct characters, vital in its weaving of family and politics. This is a miraculous novel." - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
"[A] magisterial performance. . . Mahajan is a confident, ambitious and increasingly important writer." - Jonathan Dee
"Riveting and unputdownable - Shakespearean storytelling. Karan Mahajan's best work yet." - Sonia Faleiro
"The Complex is an extraordinary gift to its lucky readers: an enormously full and brilliantly structured novel whose characters come to feel as familiar - and as bottomlessly mysterious - as one's own family. I was spellbound by the ramifying dramas of the Chopras, whose strong roots intertwine below their Delhi complex during decades of sweeping global and national change. I am awestruck by what Karan Mahajan has accomplished in The Complex, and I never wanted this book to end." - Karen Russell
"This novel's rare achievement lies in its masterful portrayal of the intimate relationship between personal lives and political realities. Through the story of a family, it captures the larger movements shaping the nation, revealing how political and social transformations seep into everyday life and quietly shape human choices. . . . Through a powerful mode of storytelling, Mahajan constructs the intricate connections between a society's moral upheavals and its political and familial aspirations. The strength, intensity, and momentum of his narrative are such that nothing needs to be pointed out deliberately; everything unfolds with organic necessity. There is a constant sense of danger lurking beneath the story, lending the narrative a palpable, high-stakes intensity that holds the reader in its grip." - Vivek Shanbhag
"In the tradition of Tolstoy, Karan Mahajan has written a family saga and a historical epic that describes humanity with absolute fidelity - no kinder or crueler, wiser or duller, grander or punier than it really is. In The Complex, not only is the personal political, but the political is a duck blind for the personal, demonstrating how family secrets and failed businesses create demagogues, martyrs, and murderers. This is a farsighted and serious novel, and a monument to radicalized times." - Tony Tulathimutte
"A delicious page-turner about familial jealousy and revenge that, in the Dostoyevskian tradition, doubles as a masterful investigation of the slipperiness of power in a changing and modernizing world. The Complex is Mahajan's most exciting, virtuosic novel yet." - Vauhini Vara
"To watch the wily Chopras jostle for dominion - not just over the crumbling walls of their shared home, but over the very historical and moral record of their age - is pure pleasure. Mahajan is, as always, a political anatomist blessed with a comedian's eye for the absurd, and The Complex is a singular portrait of a family as riven and fractious - and eternally surprising - as the country that produced it." - Madhuri Vijay
"[A] magisterial performance. . . Mahajan is a confident, ambitious and increasingly important writer." - Jonathan Dee
"Riveting and unputdownable - Shakespearean storytelling. Karan Mahajan's best work yet." - Sonia Faleiro
"The Complex is an extraordinary gift to its lucky readers: an enormously full and brilliantly structured novel whose characters come to feel as familiar - and as bottomlessly mysterious - as one's own family. I was spellbound by the ramifying dramas of the Chopras, whose strong roots intertwine below their Delhi complex during decades of sweeping global and national change. I am awestruck by what Karan Mahajan has accomplished in The Complex, and I never wanted this book to end." - Karen Russell
"This novel's rare achievement lies in its masterful portrayal of the intimate relationship between personal lives and political realities. Through the story of a family, it captures the larger movements shaping the nation, revealing how political and social transformations seep into everyday life and quietly shape human choices. . . . Through a powerful mode of storytelling, Mahajan constructs the intricate connections between a society's moral upheavals and its political and familial aspirations. The strength, intensity, and momentum of his narrative are such that nothing needs to be pointed out deliberately; everything unfolds with organic necessity. There is a constant sense of danger lurking beneath the story, lending the narrative a palpable, high-stakes intensity that holds the reader in its grip." - Vivek Shanbhag
"In the tradition of Tolstoy, Karan Mahajan has written a family saga and a historical epic that describes humanity with absolute fidelity - no kinder or crueler, wiser or duller, grander or punier than it really is. In The Complex, not only is the personal political, but the political is a duck blind for the personal, demonstrating how family secrets and failed businesses create demagogues, martyrs, and murderers. This is a farsighted and serious novel, and a monument to radicalized times." - Tony Tulathimutte
"A delicious page-turner about familial jealousy and revenge that, in the Dostoyevskian tradition, doubles as a masterful investigation of the slipperiness of power in a changing and modernizing world. The Complex is Mahajan's most exciting, virtuosic novel yet." - Vauhini Vara
"To watch the wily Chopras jostle for dominion - not just over the crumbling walls of their shared home, but over the very historical and moral record of their age - is pure pleasure. Mahajan is, as always, a political anatomist blessed with a comedian's eye for the absurd, and The Complex is a singular portrait of a family as riven and fractious - and eternally surprising - as the country that produced it." - Madhuri Vijay
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