The Epic City: The World on the Streets of Calcutta

Synopsis

A masterful and entirely fresh portrait of great hopes and dashed dreams in a mythical city from a major new literary voiceEverything 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 portrait of an era, and a city which is a world unto itself.

Copyright:

2017

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9781408888902

Related ISBNs:

9781408888834

Publisher:

Bloomsbury Publishing

Date of Addition:

09/08/18

Copyrighted By:

Kushanava Choudhury, 2

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Travel, Biographies and Memoirs

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.