Railsong

“THIS IS THE BOOK WE COULD WELL REMEMBER THIS YEAR FOR” – INDIA TODAY“GORGEOUSLY CRAFTED, COMPULSIVELY READABLE, ATTENTION-DEMANDING” – SCROLL“A SUBLIME, CLEAR-EYED VISION OF INDIA” – MINT“MASTERFULLY CONSTRUCTED” – HINDUSTAN TIMES“AN EPIC OF ONE WOMAN AND A NATION ON THE MOVE” – OPEN*A HINDU, MINT, DECCAN HERALD, FRONTLINE BOOK OF THE YEARCharu Chitol, the motherless middle child of a railway worker, pines to get away from Bhombalpur Workshop. After her teenage eyes witness the trauma of the great railway strike, she makes her escape to the teeming modern metropolis of Bombay, where she must eke out the means to live on her own terms. As the years pass, she pursues a career in the railways, even as her impulse to honour her curiosity and independence threatens to undo the hard-won securities of her personal life. A powerful story of daughters and fathers, sisters and brothers, wives and husbands, the religious and the secular, the living and the dead, history and the now, Railsong is a soaring feat of the imagination and a wonderfully funny meditation on life's many turns. Perfect for readers of The God of Small Things, The Namesake, The Inheritance of Loss, and A Suitable Boy.