Chandaneswar Junction – Shyamal Gangopadhyay, Translated from Bengali by Chaiti Mitra

Description

A simple “slice of life” story set in a provincial town in Bengal, this gleefully and inexorably pulls its reader into the complex, intertwined lives of its characters—people whose mundane insignificance is redeemed by their inextinguishable humanity, their capacity for hope and transcendent imagination. Narrated with Gangapodhyay’s characteristic wry humor, the novella is beautifully crafted, its various threads weaving a complicated tapestry in which the richly imaginative inner worlds of the characters and the harsh, implacable material world they inhabit seep into each other, blurring lines and creating vital connections.