A01=Saswati Sengupta
Author_Saswati Sengupta
Category1=Fiction
Category=FBA
Category=NL-FA
COP=India
eq_bestseller
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_modern-contemporary
eq_nobargain
Format=BC
HMM=199
IMPN=Zubaan
ISBN13=9789381017036
Language_English
PA=To order
PD=20130426
POP=New Delhi
Price=€10 to €20
PS=Active
PUB=Zubaan
SMM=24
Subject=Modern & Contemporary Fiction
WG=328
WMM=124
Product details
- ISBN 9789381017036
- Weight: 328g
- Dimensions: 124 x 199 x 24mm
- Publication Date: 26 Apr 2013
- Publisher: Zubaan
- Publication City/Country: New Delhi, IN
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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In "The Song Seekers", the debut novel by Saswati Sengupta, the monsoon rains wash over the city of Kolkata while four women sit and read and talk in the kitchen of Kailash, the old mansion of the Chattopadhyays where Uma comes to live after her marriage in the summer of 1962. It is a place of mystery to Uma. Her husband's silence about his mother's murder and a childhood tragedy, the embroidered handkerchiefs in an old soap box in her father-in-law's room, and the strange presence of the old, green-eyed Pishi - all intrigue and mystify her. But it is only as she begins to read aloud the traditional Chandimangal - composed by her husband's grandfather to celebrate the goddess - that the long-buried stories begin to emerge. In "The Song Seekers", Saswati Sengupta recasts the militant goddess Chandi as a wife and interweaves the history of the Portuguese in Bengal, the rise of print, the swadeshi movement, and the turbulence of the 1960s in Bengal. These disparate elements all come together as Uma discovers that the foundation of the mansion is not only very deep, but it also masks the stink of death.
Saswati Sengupta teaches English literature at Miranda House, University of Delhi.
