Skilfull and delicate writing where the commonplace is described in such a way, you feel as though you are seeing it for the first time. Chaudhuri takes a peek at an everyday normality and describes it with such simplicity, compassion and beauty that it becomes a little shaft of pure sunlight. It almost feels as though you have stepped into someone's mind and danced through their innermost thoughts as they whimsically drift from Oxford to India. It is perhaps India that stands out as a highlight, with it’s exotic yet homely reflections creating memories to live for. A quite lovely and enchanting little book. ~ Liz Robinson
Described as a 'felicitous prose poem', Afternoon Raag is the account of a young Bengali man who is studying at Oxford University and caught in complicated love triangle. His loneliness and melancholy sharpen his memories of home, which come back to haunt him in vivid, sensory detail. Intensely moving, superbly written, Afternoon Raag is a perfect miniature of a novel about arrivals and departures, new worlds and old homes.
'Those who are always acclaiming the poetic prose of Ondaatje would do well to study Chaudhuri' James Wood Guardian
'An extraordinary achievement.' Sunday Times
'This immensely subtle novel both estranges and gently strokes the surface of English and Indian life. I know of nothing in English fiction that begins to resemble it.' Tom Paulin
'Chaudhuri has, like Proust, perfected the art of the moment [and written] masterpieces of intimate observation.' Hilary Mantel New York Review of Books
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.
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