Malloban is set in North Calcutta in the winter of 1929. The eponymous protagonist a lower-middle-class office worker lives in College Street-a locality known for its bookstores publishing houses and universities-with his wife Utpala and their daughter Monu. The novel unfolds through a series of everyday scenes of dysfunction and discontent: bickering about bathrooms and budgeting family trips to the zoo and the movies a visit from Utpala's brother's family which displaces Malloban to a boarding house and the appearance of a frequent late-night visitor to Utpala's upstairs bedroom. Meanwhile the daughter Monu bears the brunt of her parents' "unlove."Arguably the most beloved poet in modern Bangla after Tagore Jibanananda wrote a significant number of novels and short stories discovered and published after his death. Malloban is his most popular novel.