The museum will be closed to the public on Sunday, October 12, 2025, for the K.A.M.P Family Fundraiser. Learn more

Headshot of Kiran Desai alongside her novel The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
Readings

Some Favorite Writers: Kiran Desai

Kiran Desai’s newest novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, is a spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years – an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists. 

Desai is the author of Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, which was published to unanimous acclaim in over 22 countries, and The Inheritance of Loss, which won the Booker Prize in 2006, as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was shortlisted for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction.

Readings are followed by discussion with the author and UCLA professor Mona Simpson, who organizes this series. 

Copresented by the UCLA Department of English. Limited books will be available for purchase.  

ATTENDING THIS PROGRAM?

Ticketing: This free program is not ticketed.
Parking: Self-parking is available under the museum. Rates are $8 for the first three hours with museum validation, and $3 for each additional 20 minutes, with a $22 daily maximum. There is an $8 flat rate after 5 p.m. on weekdays, and all day on weekends.

Read our food, bag check, and photo policies.
Read the Hammer's full COVID-19 safety guidelines.

♿ Accessibility information

All public programs are free and made possible by a major gift from an anonymous donor.
 
Generous support is also provided by Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, the Elizabeth Bixby Janeway Foundation, the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, an anonymous donor, and all Hammer members.
 
Digital presentation of Hammer public programs is made possible by The Billy and Audrey L. Wilder Foundation.
 
Hammer public programs are presented online in partnership with the #KeepThePromise campaign—a movement promoting social justice and human rights through the arts.