FREEDOM SONG : THREE NOVELS

In three short novels -- Freedom Song, Afternoon Raag, and A Strange and Sublime Address (The best portrait of India today I've read, Margaret Drabble says) -- Chaudhuri reveals the intimate worlds of Indian men, women, and children of the middle class, living in Calcutta and Bombay and, temporarily, in England. We follow them through the expected and surprising events of their daily lives. We witness the effects of family connectedness and separation. We see what reminds them how mysterious the world (is) at every moment. Chaudhuri's luxurious descriptions of the richly lived inner life, and his stunning evocations of place and time, create mesmerizing, unexpected narratives of what might otherwise seem merely quotidian.