Here, day and night were interchangeable. The immaculately dressed Chowringhee, radiant in her youth, had just stepped on to the floor at the nightclub.’ Set in 1950s Calcutta, Chowringhee is a sprawling saga of the intimate lives of managers, employees and guests at one of Calcutta’s largest hotels, the Shahjahan. Shankar, the newest recruit, recounts the stories of several people whose lives come together in the suites, restaurants, bar and backrooms of the hotel. As both observer and participant in the events, he inadvertently peels off the layers of everyday existence to expose the seamy underbelly of unfulfilled desires, broken dreams, callous manipulation and unbidden tragedy. What unfolds is not just the story of individual lives but also the incredible chronicle of a metropolis. Written by best-selling Bengali author Sankar, Chowringhee was published as a novel in 1962. Predating Arthur Hailey’s Hotel by three years, it became an instant hit, spawning translations in major Indian languages, a film and a play. Its larger-than-life characters-the enigmatic manager Marco Polo, the debonair receptionist Sata Bose, the tragic hostess Karabi Guha, among others-soon attained cult status. With its thinly veiled accounts of the private lives of real-life celebrities, and its sympathetic narrative seamlessly weaving the past and the present, it immediately established itself as a popular classic. Available for the first time in English, Chowringhee is as much a dirge as it is a homage to a city and its people.
Catagory: Fiction
Fiction main category
Penguin 35 Collectors Edition: One Part Woman
All of Kali and Ponna’s efforts to conceive a child-from prayers to penance, potions to pilgrimages-have been in vain. Despite being in a loving and sexually satisfying relationship, they are relentlessly hounded by the taunts and insinuations of the people around them. Ultimately, all their hopes and apprehensions come to converge on thechariot festival in the temple of the half-female god Ardhanareeswara and the revelry surrounding it. Everything hinges on the one night when rules are relaxed and consensual union between any man and woman is sanctioned. This night could end the couple’s suffering and humiliation.But it will also put their marriage to the ultimate test. Acutely observed, One Part Woman lays bare with unsparing clarity a relationship caught between the dictates of social convention and the tug of personal anxieties, vividly conjuring an intimate and unsettling portrait of marriage, love and sex.
Penguin 35 Collectors Edition: The Great Indian Novel
In Shashi Tharoor’s satirical masterpiece, the story of the Mahabharata is retold as recent Indian history, and renowned political personalities begin to resemble characters from the Mahabharata-all of whom have a curious and ambiguous relationship with Draupadi Mokrasi (D. Mokrasi for short) . . .
Penguin 35 Collectors Edition: The Princess and the Political Agent
In 1979, Binodini won the Sahitya Akademi Award for her groundbreaking feminist novel Boro Saheb Ongbi Sanatombi, a work of historical fiction based on the life of her rebellious aunt, Princess Sanatombi of Manipur. Now translated into English by Binodini’s son L. Somi Roy, this is the love story of Sanatombi and Lt Col. Henry St
P. Maxwell, the British representative in the Tibeto-Burman kingdom of Manipur.
A poignant tale of love and fealty, treachery and valour, it is set in the midst of the imperialist intrigues of the Raj, the glory of kings, warring princes, clever queens and loyal retainers. Reviving front-page global headlines of the Anglo-Manipuri War of 1891, Binodini’s perspective sparkles with wit, empathy and beauty, vividly bringing to life the court and manners of a little-known kingdom. In doing so, she recovers its extraordinary history and a forgotten chapter of the British Raj.
Andaman Adventure: Barren Island
This is the eighth and final book in the Vikram-Aditya series and the second of the two-part ‘Andaman Adventure’ books after The Jarawa.
When the book begins, Vikram, Aditya and Chitra are in Port Blair, the capital city of the Andamans. The trio are recuperating from their recent adventure in the remote Jarawa Jungles in the Andaman Islands. While exploring this colourful city, Vikram stumbles upon a series of intriguing clues. However, the investigations he conducts end up ruffling some feathers and manage to upset some powerful criminals. To escape their wrath, Vikram is forced to undertake a secret voyage destined for unknown shores, under cover of darkness.
In the remote corners of the Andaman Sea lies an island called Barren. Vikram arrives at this uninhabited and forgotten outpost of India, and soon discovers that it is not just a band of desperate men he must pit his wits against. Primal forces of nature, the very ones that shaped our planet, are at work on Barren Island, and Vikram and his companions have to face these challenges as well. Finally, this scintillating adventure series comes to a fiery and exhilarating climax on Barren Island’s isolated shores.
Andaman Adventure: The Jarawa
This is the seventh book in the Vikram-Aditya series following from Koleshwar’s Secret and is the first of the two-part ‘Andaman Adventure’ books.
The Andaman coast, north and west of the capital city of Port Blair, is an unspoiled stretch of beauty. This untamed coast has only been partly explored. Large sea eagles prowl its blue skies, saltwater crocodiles patrol meandering creeks, and lush and dense forests unfold behind isolated beaches.
These magnificent forests are home to the proud and ancient people of this land known to outsiders as the Jarawa. Wielding arrows and spears, the Jarawa fiercely protect their wild abode, attacking those who dare enter into their sacred space.
Vikram and Aditya, accompanied by Chitra, a free-spirited girl much like the islands themselves, embark on an adventure of a lifetime along this very coast. On a moonlit night they venture up a forbidden creek where danger lurks in the shadows awaiting them. Find out what happens next in this thrilling adventure series set in India’s farthest-most region.
Manjhi’s Mayhem: Longlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2023
Introducing Sewaram Manjhi in this explosive novel that combines a tight mystery and an anti-hero who refuses to back down.
Sewaram Manjhi works as a security guard outside a posh Bombay café. On the surface, he’s not unlike millions of invisible Indians who make the city tick, but there is a difference: he holds rage in his heart, and he will go to any length to snatch a chunk of the good life. Enter Santosh, hostess at the restaurant across the street. A damsel in distress, Santosh has a strange request for Manjhi, and far be it from him to say no. What follows is tabaahi – mayhem – as Manjhi finds himself caught in a web of lies and deceit, and on the trail of a bag full of money that will lead to broken noses, bloody heads, sex, seduction, and murder. If he succeeds, Manjhi might finally discover what it means to be in control of one’s destiny in a land where birth determines fate.
The Cock is the Culprit
In a small village in Kerala, people begin to feel threatened by an invisible rooster that crows at odd hours. It is heard interrupting the morning and night prayers at the temple, the mass at the church, the azaan at the
mosque and the Martyrs’ Day ceremony. When it hoots in the middle of the national anthem being sung at the local school, it is instantly labelled as a threat to national security.
It offends the sentiments of all those who are religious, political, patriarchal, exploitative, fanatical and homophobic. Naturally, there are many baying for its blood. The witch-hunt that ensues fuels suspicions that the invisible cock might even be a human, an anarchist who is trying to destabilize the nation with help from
outside.
Incisive and hilarious by turns, The Cock Is the Culprit does an astute job of exposing the dark
underbelly of Kerala society.
One Hell of a Lover
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
WINNER OF THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE
A searing satire set amid the murderous mayhem of Sri Lanka beset by civil war
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida, war photographer, gambler and closet gay, has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. At a time when scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts who cluster around him can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to try and contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka. Ten years after his prizewinning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Karunatilaka is back with a rip-roaring epic, full of mordant wit and disturbing truths.