At 29, Lila is a rising publishing executive in Brooklyn when she learns that she has inherited her family’s enormous ancestral home in Kolkata — along with the secrets that lie within— in this sweeping multi-generational debut
It is the summer of 2015, and Lila De is on the verge of a breakthrough in her career as an editor at a prestigious New York publishing house. But when she gets a call from her mother in India, informing her that she’s inherited her family’s sprawling estate, she must confront the legacy of a complicated extended family that she thought she left behind 16 years ago.
Returning to Kolkata reunites Lila with her mother after a decade of estrangement, and then there is her grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins, all of whom still live in the house, all of whom resent her sudden inheritance. To make matters more complex, one man follows Lila to India while another has been waiting for her return, a long time.
As Lila tries to come to terms with both past and present, long-suppressed secrets from her family emerge, culminating in an act of shocking violence, and she must finally reckon with her inherited custom of sweeping everything under the surface.
For fans of Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes and the novels of Vikram Seth, The Magnificent Ruins is an utterly addictive read.
THE MAGNIFICENT RUINS
A NOVEL
“The Magnificent Ruins gripped me from the first page and moved me to tears on the last. A wise, beautiful and haunting story about difficult mothers and daughters, the complications of family life, and redefining the meaning of home, this novel will stay close to my heart for a long, long time to come.”
- Thrity Umrigar, bestselling author of Honor and The Museum of Failures
“As gorgeous as it is wise, Roy's voice soars and whispers with uncanny insight and wit, transporting us across continents, charting not only the distance between Kolkata and New York, but the stranger more mysterious abyss between childhood and adulthood, between family and home, between daughter and mother, and perhaps between life as we want it to be and life as it is—messy, complicated, beautiful, and sad. A page-turning, heart-rending family epic, this is a wickedly smart novel that asks: How do we love one another across the entangled loyalties of geography and time? The answer will surely enlarge your life and keep you reading long into the night.”
- Sunil Yapa, author of Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, Pen Faulker award finalist
“So many of Roy’s pages are a love letter to Kolkata…her writing truly shines”
- New York Times Book Review
“Roy’s roomy novel draws us deep into the way family history is inscribed on buildings. With The Magnificent Ruins, she proves herself a daring architect, taking full advantage of this sprawling plot to explore a family shaken to its foundation… I’m smitten… Eight thousand miles doesn’t feel so far away when we’re traveling with a writer this inviting.”
- Ron Charles, Washington Post
“Roy’s powerhouse debut centers on a fabulous decaying mansion…If you love a family epic set in India (the food! The melodrama!), this one’s for you.”
- People.com, Best Books of November 2024
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ABOUT NAYANTARA
Nayantara Roy is the author of THE MAGNIFICENT RUINS which was a New York Times Editor’s Choice novel of 2024, an LA Times Editor’s Pick, a Washington Post Best Book, a People Magazine Best Book, an Apple best debut, a Hachette book club pick, a Lilly’s Library pick and a Gold House book club pick amongst others.
Her second novel, SISTERS OF THE HALVED HEART is forthcoming from Algonquin/Little Brown in the summer of 2026. In 2018, Roy won the Rick De Marines award for her short story 8C. Her plays have been performed internationally, in the UK and India. She is also the Senior Vice President of Television at Sandbox Entertainment where she acquires and develops original scripted series. Roy lives in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.
Photo: Bianca Catbagan
NEWS
Creative Producing alumna Tara Roy ’17 is publishing The Magnificent Ruins, a debut novel, with Algonquin Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, in 2024.
Welcome to the electrifying intersection of innovation and entertainment, where talents shine and creativity knows no bounds.
Highlights among the year’s novels, short-story collections and works in translation, as selected by the staff of The Washington Post’s Book World.
Nayantara Roy’s debut finds an American woman traveling to India to claim her inheritance: a house full of her relatives.
In her insightful, multilayered debut novel, The Magnificent Ruins, playwright and television executive Nayantara Roy turns her storytelling skills to a new form
Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
In “The Magnificent Ruins,” an Indian expatriate reunites with her estranged family after her grandfather unexpectedly made her heir to his estate.
Television executive, playwright and now novelist Roy turns to India for this debut novel about an unexpected inheritance.