Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
 First edition | |
| Author | Kiran Desai |
|---|---|
| Country | India |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Atlantic Monthly Press |
Publication date | 1998 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 209 |
| ISBN | 0-87113-711-9 |
| OCLC | 39486434 |
| Followed by | The Inheritance of Loss |
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard is a novel by Kiran Desai published in 1998. It is her first book and won the top prize for the Betty Trask Awards in 1998.[1] It is set in the Indian village of Shahkot (state of Punjab) and follows the exploits of a young man, Sampath Chawla, trying to avoid the responsibilities of adult life. Fed up with his life in Shahkot, Sampath goes to a guava orchard and settles himself in a guava tree, where he uses the gossip he learned while working at the post office to convince people he is clairvoyant and soon becomes a popular "holy man".
Kiran Desai based this book on a real-life story in which a man, Kapila Pradhan, lived up a tree for 15 years. This was the author's inspiration for the book and there are similarities between the novel and Pradhan's life in his tree.