New Literary Fiction: *The Complex*
Karan Mahajan's new literary novel, *The Complex*, is available in hardcover and ebook [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/753771/the-complex-by-karan-mahajan/]. It's a major new release for the genre.
*The Complex* follows the descendants of S.P. Chopra in Delhi and Michigan, exploring family dynamics and divided loyalties after immigration. The novel is set in the 1980s and early 90s in the A-19 Modern Colony, a cluster of apartments built by S.P. Chopra after the Indian partition of 1947. Karan Mahajan, born in 1984, is an Indian-American novelist and professor at Brown University. *The Complex* took Mahajan approximately 10 years to write and revise. Mahajan's previous novel, *The Association of Small Bombs*, was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award. It also won the 2017 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award. His first novel, *Family Planning*, was a finalist for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. Early reviews of *The Complex* compare Mahajan to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, praising its exploration of family, politics, and Indian society. The novel delves into themes of revenge, redemption, ambition, and the cost of power. Literary fiction in 2026 is seeing a resurgence with readers drawn to emotionally rich stories that explore identity, relationships, and ambition.
