Randy Boyagoda's Campus Novel Lords of Serendipity Gets a Guardian Review
A new novel about university life, set across Sri Lanka, the United States and Italy, has been reviewed by The Guardian. The review was published on 3 November 2026.
The book is Lords of Serendipity by Canadian writer Randy Boyagoda, a professor of English at the University of Toronto. It runs to 352 pages and comes in hardcover, ebook and audiobook formats. HarperCollins lists its on-sale date as 8 September 2026.
The story is a "campus novel", meaning a book whose action takes place at a university. Its characters include students, parents and professors. Each of them, in different ways, deals with the university, which becomes the common antagonist. In the Guardian's reading, the book is equal parts satire, dystopia and exposé about academia. Satire uses humour to mock its targets. A dystopia is a story set in a frightening, broken society. An exposé reveals wrongdoing.
The Guardian says the novel is driven by several pressures on the modern campus. These include Trump administration pressure on higher education, the erosion of the humanities (subjects such as literature, history and philosophy), Israel's devastation of Gaza, and the threat of artificial intelligence. The Literary Review of Canada said in September that the book depicts contemporary quandaries facing North American universities.
The University of Toronto has described the book as Boyagoda's "global campus novel". In an October 2026 news item, the university said the novel explores the absurdities and hypocrisies of higher education.
For readers, the practical details are simple. The book is 352 pages long and available in three formats. Its setting moves between three countries, and its cast spans three generations of campus life, from undergraduates to the adults who pay for them and the faculty who teach them.
