Apr 13: Westland Books is excited to announce the acquisition of two new major titles by Amit Chaudhuri, widely acclaimed as one of the most singular and innovative voices in contemporary letters. In a major move for global readers, the two significant new volumes – Château Rouge (novel) and Incompleteness (collection of essays) are slated for a simultaneous release in India, the US and the UK.
Following his exploration of history and remembering in Berlin in his last novel Sojourn, Amit’s latest fiction Château Rouge, located in an atypical Parisian neighbourhood, looks at the immediate present as a way of accessing history. The story follows a scholar-musician in Paris who navigates the dubious but urgent idea of an ‘authentic’ Parisian experience by resisting, and then embracing, the makeshift neighbourhood he finds himself living in.
Parallel to the fiction, Incompleteness gathers some of Amit’s finest essays and criticism spanning more than two decades. This collection showcases his unique sensibility, offering unexpected insights into a variety of subjects from Rabindranath Tagore’s legacy to Joni Mitchell’s music.
Author, Amit Chaudhuri talking about the two books says,
“I am more than delighted that my new novel and book of essays are in the hands of Karthika and her team. If anyone has persuaded me about their love of literature and their commitment as a publisher without consciously trying to, it is Karthika. She and her team are uncommon in the publishing scenario in India today. With Karthika at Westland, Edwin Frank at New York Review Books, and Alex Bowler and Aisling Brennan at Faber, it seems to me that these books are being overseen by publishers open to all expressions of the literary, from the familiar to the strange. Château Rouge, after Sojourn, is my second European novel: something which I did not plan, but which seems inevitable now that it has happened. The book of essays, a selection that covers twenty four years, represents my ongoing attempts to understand what I do, and the changed meanings of things we had once taken as givens, including literature.”
Karthika VK, Publisher remarked,
“It’s a privilege to publish Amit Chaudhuri at Westland. Also, an opportunity to celebrate the literary heart of publishing itself. With the new, and surprising, Château Rouge and the remarkable collection of essays written over two decades, we hope to take Amit’s work to those already invested in his world, while also reaching a new generation of young and adventurous readers.”
