CALCUTTA NIGHTS
Translated from the Bengali by Rajat Chaudhuri (রজত চৌধুরী)
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This is the real-life story and memoir of the enigmatic `Meghnad Gupta', pen name of famed Bengali fiction writer Hemendrakumar Roy. Translated into English by Rajat Chaudhuri almost a century after the first publication of Raater Kolkata in 1923, Roy reveals to contemporary readers the darkest secrets of an earlier Calcutta.
The first two decades of the last century, the backdrop for this book, were politically turbulent times. Those days, Calcutta, the erstwhile capital of British India, was teeming with people from different parts of the country besides Europeans and other foreigners. It was a city of sin, pleasure and suffering. Indians who arrived and settled here mingled with locals, some of them picking up dress, manners and the wanton lifestyles of the Bengali `babu’ while others kept their identities intact. All this created a unique cosmopolitan setting, coloured with shades of debauchery, darkness and crime that this first-hand account brilliantly recounts.
Calcutta Nights is the Hootum Pyanchar Naksha (published in 1862 and penned by Kaliprasanna Sinha) of the early twentieth century a book that will help anyone understand the contrasts and colours of a unique Indian metropolis.
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Reviews, Excerpts, Events, Listings and more:
Quoted in `City of Spectres: Spectral Spatialities of Calcutta and their Depiction in Bengali Ghost Stories' by MD Mahasweta published in Critical Imprints (peer-reviewed journal, Department of English, Loreto College)
Readings with Oxford Bookstores
Review in Muse India
Review in India Today
Review by Krishnan Unni P. in Indian Literature journal published by Sahitya Akademi (India's National Academy of Letters)
Books of the Week feature in Firstpost
Review in New Indian Express
Review in Outlook magazine
Review in Scroll
Review in Dainik Tribube (in Hindi)
Review in Tehelka (image below)
Review in IANS (India Abroad News Service) `Books This Weekend' and carried by Outlook Live and Dainik Bhaskar Online. (Image at the end of this page)
Notice in Millennium Post
Excerpt published in Scroll.in
Review and report in Business Standard
Interview in Muse India
Excerpt published in The Pioneer
Report in Outlook magazine
Report in PTI (Press Trust of India)
Mention in New Indian Express
Review by Ayusman Chakraborty in The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 11, Issue-III, June 2020
Notice in Punjab Kesari (Hindi newspaper, image below)
Notice in Punjab Kesari (Hindi newspaper, image below)
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| `Calcutta Nights' by Hemendra Kumar Roy, translated by Rajat Chaudhuri, review in South China Morning Post (screenshot) |
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| Excerpt in The Pioneer |
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| Review in IANS (from Bhaskar Live) |
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| Review in Asian Review of Books (link above) |
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| `Calcutta Nights' by Hemendra Kumar Roy, translated by Rajat Chaudhuri, Notice in Punjab Kesari (Hindi newspaper) |
`Calcutta Nights' by Hemendra Kumar Roy, translated by Rajat Chaudhuri, Review-notice in Tehelka
