Calcutta

Calcutta is Amit Chaudhuri’s account of two years in the city. Using the 2011 elections as his fulcrum, Chaudhuri evokes all that is most particular and extraordinary about the city-from its houses with their slatted windows to its effervescent cultural life and its pujas and Christmas. He paints too an acute, and often ironic, picture of life in the city today-of its malls, restaurants, its middle class who leave and then return reluctantly, and of its itinerant poor. Lyrical, brilliantly observed, and profound, Calcutta is one of the finest books ever written on the city.