The Epic City

Shortlisted for the 2018 Ondaatje PrizeShortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the YearA 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.