Chowringhee

Description

Chowringhee, first published in Bengali in 1962, 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 the inhabitants of the suites, restaurants, bars and backrooms of the hotel. As both observer and participant, he tells of the unfulfilled desires, broken dreams, callous manipulations and unbidden tragedies of those who work and live there - the enigmatic manager Marco Polo, the debonair receptionist Sata Bose, and the tragic hostess Karabi Guha, among others. What unfolds is not just the story of individual lives but also the glittering chronicle of a lost metropolis.

Sankar (Mani Sankar Mukherji) is one of Bengal's most widely read modern novelists. He is also the author of several non-fiction bestsellers, including a biography of Swami Vivekananda. Two of his novels, Seemabaddha (Company Limited) and Jana Aranya (The Middleman) were filmed by Satyajit Ray. He lives in Calcutta.

'A terrific page-turner... An utter treat... Chowringhee might, to many eyes, supply more unashamed reader-transporting enjoyment than any other fiction of the year.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent 'I lost myself in it for days... A wonderful experience - both gripping and moving.' Vikram Seth 'Chowringhee is one of those novels you don't want to end. It teems with life, creating an entirely absorbing world.' Vikas Swarup, author of Slumdog Millionaire 'A panoramic and utterly captivating picture of a workplace, a city and an era - This old-fashioned feast of storytelling crawls with character, heaves with drama and bursts with flavour - A sumptuous buffet of a book.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent 'Chowringhee has that essential quality of a good novel: the capacity to escape, and help the reader escape, time. You want to turn the pages, but you do not want the pages to end. The words are fresh, and the world of the novel is completely alive, despite being written over 40 years ago... A lovely, charming book brimming with life and full of the unexpectedness of a closely observed world.' Book of the Week, Guardian