A New York Times Book of the Year Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his books of the year An explosive, genre-defying reinvention of the `immigrant` novel from Amitava Kumar.Meet Kailash. Also known as Kalashnikov. Or AK-47. Or just plain AK. His journey from India has taken him to graduate school in New York where he keeps falling in love: not just with women, but with literature and radical politics, the fuel of youthful exuberance. Each heady affair brings new learning: about himself, and about his relationship to a country founded on immigration - a country that is now unsure of the migrant`s place in the nation`s fabric. But how can AK learn to belong when he`s in a constant state of exile.