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About The Book
Welcome to the Shahjahan, one of Calcutta's oldest and most venerable hotels.
Meet its newest receptionist and hear of the people who spend their days and nights behind the Shahjahan's grand façade, a world where greed, seduction, and death coexist with love, luxury, and pride.
Chowringhee reveals an irresistible vision of a lost - and loved - metropolis, an homage to an old India of myth and memory.
My Thoughts
My favorite author is Mani Sankar Mukherji, his writing style and the subjects he chooses to write about are unique.
Chowringhee is the second in his captivating read of The Calcutta Trilogy. This book is pure love.
The Book was originally written in Bengali in 1962 and later translated into English in 2007 by Arunava Sinha.
I simply love this book. The way the author portrayed the beauty of the city in its chaos is mastery.
I will never get enough of this addictive tale which has a lingering melancholy that is oddly relaxing. The Shahjahan Hotel's hustle to make the most of the present while remembering the past was all that mattered at its best.
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About the Author
SANKAR - the pen name of Mani Sankar Mukherji - is one of Bengal's most widely read novelists. He was born in Bongaon, which later became an Indo-Bangladesh border town. His father, a lawyer, moved to Kolkata before the Second World War. Following his father's untimely death in 1947, Sankar gave up his studies and started earning his livelihood - first as a street hawker, then as a typewriter cleaner, and as a part-time school teacher. He then became the youngest clerk in a broking firm at the city's famed Royal Exchange.
A chance meeting provided him with the opportunity to become the last clerk to the last English lawyer, Noel Fredrick Barwell, of Calcutta's High Court.Barwell died in 1953. The following year Sankar began an unforgettable serial in the popular Bengali literary weekly, Desh, in which he recreated the last days of the last 'English Lawyer', his chamber, and his cases. Kato Ajanarey was published in 1955 and remains an all-time Bengali bestseller. Other novels followed, including Chowringhee (1962) and Gharer Madhye Ghar, short stories, travelogues, and biographies. Two of his novels, Seemabaddha (Company Limited) and Jana Aranya (The Middleman) were filmed by Satyajit Ray. Mani Sankar Mukherji lives and works in Kolkata (Calcutta).
Author on the Web
