Sakina's Kiss

An upper-middle class couple in Bangalore, Venkat and Viji, find their quiet life upended—and the flaws in their marriage exposed—when two strange young men come knocking at their door in the middle of the night, claiming to have business with their daughter, Rekha. Since Rekha, a college senior, happens to be away, visiting relatives in the countryside, Venkat sends the boys away—but they come back the next day, and this time they’re not alone. 

As Venkat begins to fear for his daughter’s safety, he is haunted by memories of similar, sinister events from his own youth, culminating in a betrayal and disappearance he’d prefer to forget. As his guilt-ridden imagination leaps between knowing and unknowing, evasion and confrontation, Shanbhag reveals not just the tensions in a marriage or a family, but also the polarization of Indian politics and the resurgence of the Hindu right.

Precise, enigmatic, and suspenseful, Sakina’s Kiss fulfills the promise of Vivek Shanbhag's lauded debut, Ghachar Ghochar, which Parul Sehgal called “A great Indian novel . . . elegant, lean, balletic” (The New York Times).

“Not since Kafka has a writer created such terror and tenderness on the same page. Vivek is probably the best writer writing in any language anywhere. If you read one book from India, read Sakina’s Kiss. If you want to read one novel from anywhere in the world, read Sakina’s Kiss.” 

—Mohammed Hanif

“What a gift to have an English translation of Shanbhag’s prose! We feel we  know the middle class family he describes; their joy, tensions, and contradictions are specific to them and yet are universal. A delightful read.”

—Abraham Verghese

“Vivek Shanbhag is one of those writers whose voice takes your breath away at the first encounter.”

—Yiyun Li

“Shanbhag zeroes in on the growing cracks in an Indian family’s facade in this rich and stimulating novel . . . The past and present join to create a fascinating and intricate portrait of Venkat, which in turn encompasses the contentious political, gender, and class dynamics of contemporary India. Throughout, Shanbhag is a master of restraint, spinning a deceptively simple story that culminates in an exquisite final act. This one’s a knockout.

—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“Translating from the regional Indian language Kannada, Srinath Perur has carried across the author’s light-fingered irony, narrative concision and deep humanity. Writers are too liberally likened to Anton Chekhov, but it is Chekhov’s classic story ‘The Man in a Shell’ (1898) that this splendid novel most resembles in its deft illustration of the tyranny of obedience and the mortal dangers of shielding one’s eyes to injustice.”

—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal

“Sakina’s Kiss is a masterful meditation about an alienated protagonist baffled  by the liberalization of traditional culture and what it means to be a  modern man. Its universal themes are handled with the most delicate touch, woven  into a gripping tale spread over four days.” 

—Gabriel Byrne, actor and  author of Walking with Ghosts

“Vivek Shanbhag’s magnificent novella, Ghachar Ghochar, [drew] rapturous acclaim from far and wide . . . Now Shanbhag and Perur are back with Sakina’s Kiss, another compact masterpiece, about the uniquely human delusion of being in charge of our own lives . . . By turns comic and unsettling, this is another triumph from Shanbhag.”

—Claire Adam, The Irish Times

“Sakina’s Kiss is a work of inspired misdirection. The novel is one huge act of literary prestidigitation. ‘Look,’ says Vivek Shanbhag, distracting you with one hand, and teasing you into believing you’ve embarked on a thriller. Meanwhile, with the other hand he’s writing a masterful work which dismantles the sexual politics of today’s divided India [and] the tension between India’s relentless drive towards modernity versus the rise of an intensely conservative and nationalist form of Hindu populism . . . The tensions Shanbhag explores are playing out across the world today as men struggle to come to terms with the loss of power masculinity once conveyed.”

—Neil Mackay, The Scotland Herald

“Astonishingly truthful and marvelously playful, Sakina’s Kiss is an extraordinary novel.” 

—Megha Majumdar

“As precise as it is capacious, Sakina’s Kiss [lays] bare the politics of caste, class, and gender that shape urban and rural existence in modern-day India . . . Part of Shanbhag’s genius, captured evocatively in Srinath Perur’s translation, lies in his facility for restraint. 

—Nikita Biswal, BOMB Magazine

“Vivek Shanbhag is a writer of rare and wonderful gifts.”

—Garth Greenwell

Vivek Shanbhag’s first translated novel, Ghachar Ghochar, was named a best book by The New York Times and the Guardian and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He lives in Bangalore.

Srinath Perur writes about science, travel, and books among other things and translates from Kannada to English. He is the author of the travelog If It's Monday It Must Be Madurai and the translator of This Life at Play and Ghachar Ghochar.

Sakina's Kiss • Paperback ISBN: 9781961341296

Jul 15, 2025 • McNALLY EDITIONS no. 40

5" x 8.5" • 192 pages • $19.00

eBook ISBN: 9781961341302