-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
From the Man Asian Prize–shortlisted author Rahul Bhattacharya, a breathtaking novel about a woman forging a life for herself on the railways of twentieth-century India.
In a country rapidly modernizing after independence, Animesh Chitol bends his caste title into a quirky surname, moves his family to the brand-new township of Bhombalpur Railway Workshop, and throws in his lot with an optimism-filled future. Then tragedy strikes. Into the empty space left by his wife's passing grows Chitol's only daughter, the middle child, Charu. As India moves from steam to diesel locomotives, through a great strike and state repression, Charu flees to Bombay, alarmed by her narrow prospects. There she quests for the means to live on her own terms.
Amidst the everyday discriminations of modern India, Charu forges her own destiny, becoming a railway woman and census enumerator who keeps her heart open-sometimes guilelessly-to her country's vast possibility. Sweeping, elegiac, and at times wonderfully comic, Railsong is one woman's coming of age and a beautifully complex love letter to the finely wrought world of the Indian railways and a country beset by religious and political upheaval.
"Bhattacharya...serves up an illuminating tale about a woman fighting for her agency in India...Through Charu's experiences, Bhattacharya provides a wide-angle view of India's inequality and patriarchal gender roles, all while depicting in intimate detail how his protagonist struggles to live on her own terms." —Publishers Weekly
"The novel's witty, slightly Dickensian tone offers both humor and poignancy. This bildungsroman concerning one woman's quest to define her identity also brings India into sharp focus." —Kirkus Reviews
"Tracing Charu's story against tidal forces of history is brilliant, and her perception of feminism's impact is moving." —Booklist
"Rahul Bhattacharya is an extraordinary writer, and Railsong is a majestic yet profoundly tender novel. Vigorously alive to the currents of national change as well as to the tragedy, daring, humor, and love experienced in one woman's days and years, Railsong bids us to observe the worth and intricacy of one person's journey." ―Megha Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning
"Magnificent. Railsong treads so lightly, and yet has such depth to it. I would follow Miss Chitol to the ends of the earth for the continued joy of her company." ―Kamila Shamsie, internationally bestselling and Women's Prize for Fiction-winning author of Home Fire and Best of Friends
This information about Railsong was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rahul Bhattacharya is a writer, journalist and editor. He was born in Bombay in 1979 and lives in Delhi. His first book, Pundits from Pakistan, a cricket tour book, was published in 2005. It won the Crossword Popular Book Award in India, and was shortlisted for the Cricket Society Award, UK. In 2010, it was voted a top 10 cricket book of all time by The Wisden Cricketer, UK.
The Sly Company of People Who Care, his first novel, was published by Picador in 2011. It won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize in the UK and the Hindu Literary Prize in India. It was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, the Commonwealth Book Prize and the Economist Crossword Book Award, and was a Kirkus fiction Book of the Year in the US. He is an editor at The Cricket Monthly.
If you liked Railsong, try these:
by Salman Rushdie
Published 2024
The epic tale of a woman who breathes a fantastical empire into existence, only to be consumed by it over the centuries—from the transcendent imagination of Booker Prize–winning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie.
by Sindya Bhanoo
Published 2023
These intimate stories of South Indian immigrants and the families they left behind center women's lives and ask how women both claim and surrender power - a stunning debut collection from an O. Henry Prize winner.
by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Published 2021
International-award-winning author Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi's novel is a sweeping and powerful portrait of a young girl and her family: who they are, what history has taken from them, and--most importantly--how they find their way back to each other.
Published as The First Woman in the UK.
It is always darkest just before the day dawneth
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
