The Epic City

The World on the Streets of Calcutta

Nonfiction, Travel, Asia, India, History, Asian, Biography & Memoir
Cover of the book The Epic City by Mr Kushanava Choudhury, Bloomsbury Publishing
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Author: Mr Kushanava Choudhury ISBN: 9781635571578
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Publication: January 9, 2018
Imprint: Bloomsbury USA Language: English
Author: Mr Kushanava Choudhury
ISBN: 9781635571578
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication: January 9, 2018
Imprint: Bloomsbury USA
Language: English

Shortlisted for the 2018 Ondaatje Prize
Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year

A masterful and entirely fresh portrait of great hopes and dashed dreams in a mythical city from a major new literary voice.

Everything that could possibly be wrong with a city was wrong with Calcutta.

When Kushanava Choudhury arrived in New Jersey at the age of twelve, he had already migrated halfway around the world four times. After graduating from Princeton, he moved back to the world which his immigrant parents had abandoned, to a city built between a river and a swamp, where the moisture-drenched air swarms with mosquitos after sundown.

Once the capital of the British Raj, and then India's industrial and cultural hub, by 2001 Calcutta was clearly past its prime. Why, his relatives beseeched him, had he returned? Surely, he could have moved to Delhi, Bombay or Bangalore, where a new Golden Age of consumption was being born.

Yet fifteen million people still lived in Calcutta. Working for the Statesman, its leading English newspaper, Kushanava Choudhury found the streets of his childhood unchanged by time. Shouting hawkers still overran the footpaths, fish-sellers squatted on bazaar floors; politics still meant barricades and bus burnings, while Communist ministers travelled in motorcades.

Sifting through the chaos for the stories that never make the papers, Kushanava Choudhury paints a soulful, compelling portrait of the everyday lives that make Calcutta. Written with humanity, wit and insight, The Epic City is an unforgettable depiction of an era, and a city which is a world unto itself.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Shortlisted for the 2018 Ondaatje Prize
Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year

A masterful and entirely fresh portrait of great hopes and dashed dreams in a mythical city from a major new literary voice.

Everything that could possibly be wrong with a city was wrong with Calcutta.

When Kushanava Choudhury arrived in New Jersey at the age of twelve, he had already migrated halfway around the world four times. After graduating from Princeton, he moved back to the world which his immigrant parents had abandoned, to a city built between a river and a swamp, where the moisture-drenched air swarms with mosquitos after sundown.

Once the capital of the British Raj, and then India's industrial and cultural hub, by 2001 Calcutta was clearly past its prime. Why, his relatives beseeched him, had he returned? Surely, he could have moved to Delhi, Bombay or Bangalore, where a new Golden Age of consumption was being born.

Yet fifteen million people still lived in Calcutta. Working for the Statesman, its leading English newspaper, Kushanava Choudhury found the streets of his childhood unchanged by time. Shouting hawkers still overran the footpaths, fish-sellers squatted on bazaar floors; politics still meant barricades and bus burnings, while Communist ministers travelled in motorcades.

Sifting through the chaos for the stories that never make the papers, Kushanava Choudhury paints a soulful, compelling portrait of the everyday lives that make Calcutta. Written with humanity, wit and insight, The Epic City is an unforgettable depiction of an era, and a city which is a world unto itself.

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