Float and wander through a story where an everyday beginning, middle and end, becomes a world transformed. The author sets you adrift, starts to bring your attention to an occasion or individual and then sets a song or a description of a room to capture your thoughts and send them elsewhere. Giving a real insight into a certain sphere of life in India during the 80’s, we are also allowed a fleeting glimpse of some of the numerous people required to make this particular household function. Occasionally you may need to research certain words to understand their meaning and context in this tale of family life. The author has the ability to open your eyes, to reveal the hidden, to encourage you to look for the connections in this delightfully whimsical yet satisfying read. ~ Liz Robinson
Shyamji has music in his blood, for his father was the acclaimed 'heavenly singer' and guru, Ram Lal. But Shyam Lal is not his father, and knows he never will be. Mallika Sengupta's voice could have made her famous, but being the wife of a successful businessman is a full-time occupation in itself. Mallika's son, Nirmalya, believes in suffering for his art, and for him, all compromise is failure: those with talent should be true to that talent. No matter what. Written in haunting, melodic prose, The Immortals tells the story of Shyam, Mallika and Nirmalya: their relationships, their lives, their music.
'Chaudhuri's exquisite, highly-nuanced, often very funny novel - after all, as unfamiliar to me as NJ is to Bombay - somehow took command of my thinking, my vocabulary, my sense of what's important and what should be. This kind of surrender is rare, and is what I always seek in fiction.' Richard Ford
'A command performance.' Eileen Battersby Irish Times
Author
About Amit Chaudhuri
Amit Chaudhuri is the author of five critically acclaimed novels, is a poet, an acclaimed musician, and a highly regarded critic. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia. He has contributed fiction, poetry and reviews to numerous publications including the Guardian, London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, New Yorker and Granta Magazine. Amit lives in Calcutta and Norwich.
