Karan Mahajan's "The Complex"

About this episode

Karan Mahajan discusses his novel 'The Complex', exploring family struggles and historical context in India post-partition.

Medaya Ocher and Eric Newman speak with Karan Mahajan about his latest novel, The Complex . Taking its name from the collection of buildings that patriarch SP Chopra built for his family in Delhi amid the fallout of the 1947 partition crisis, the novel explores how Chopra's descendants struggle to escape the pull of an overbearing family and the long shadow cast by their storied ancestor. As they seek to wrest the lives they want from their surroundings, buried secrets and the tectonic forces of a rising Hindu nationalist movement threaten to tear them all apart. Medaya, Eric, and Karan discuss the transformation of India from the 1970s through the 1990s, the flight from family as both opportunity and wound, and what it means to live with and through buried family secrets.

People in this episode

Hosts: Medaya Ocher, Eric Newman

Guest: Karan Mahajan

Topics covered

• family dynamics
• Indian history
• nationalism
• secrets
• literature
• identity

Keywords

• Karan Mahajan
• The Complex
• family secrets
• Hindu nationalism
• Indian history
• partition
• literature

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Complex

Places: Delhi, India

More episodes of LARB Radio Hour

• Suzy Hansen's "From Life Itself" · May 8, 2026 · 55 min
• Lucrecia Martel "Nuestra Tierra" · May 1, 2026 · 37 min
• A Return to the Queer 90's · April 24, 2026 · 59 min
• Patrick Radden Keefe's "London Falling" · April 17, 2026 · 53 min
• Reynaldo Rivera's "Propiedad Privada" · April 3, 2026 · 49 min
• Hyperpolitics · March 27, 2026 · 52 min