“So much darkness”: Looking for the Light in Bitan Chakraborty’s The Mark, by Indrajit Bose

Book Reviews Indrajit Bose The author at the Zakir Hussain Delhi College during the Bengali Literary Festival 2018 / Photo courtesy of bitanchakraborty.com Simplicity and quiet elegance never fail to impress us. The effect of a good short story often is like a fugue or an adagio in a musical composition, creating impressions fugitifs, in the best manner of the impressionists, sketching in a mood or elaborating on a motif or theme. Bitan Chakraborty’s The Mark (Shambhabi Imprint, 2020) is unquestionably a collection of short stories revolving around the everyday lives of ordinary characters that leaves an impression of serious engagement with the contemporary Indian milieu and is also aesthetically pleasing. Chakraborty is already an established author of the novel; his foray into the short story adds a further dimension to his existing repertoire. A writer must “convincingly create an illusory world if he is to captivate his readers,” Chakraborty has said, and he appears to have lived up to his aesthetic or writerly principles in The Mark. Peripheral and marginal lives lived by characters grappling with the challenging socioeconomic realities of our times, mediated with narratorial control and poise—these are what make the stories in The Mark a testament to the craft of a storyteller and short fiction writer par excellence. The stories in the collection revolve around everyday life and broad human themes—the despair and... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'

[ World Literature Today | 2020-04-21 13:18:37 UTC ]
News tagged with: #short stories #literary festival

Other news stories related to: "“So much darkness”: Looking for the Light in Bitan Chakraborty’s The Mark, by Indrajit Bose"

Heather Marks wins 2018 Quarto Translations Award

Writer Heather Marks has won this year’s Quarto Translations Diversity Award, run by the Golden Egg Academy, for her story set in both the 18th century and contemporary Bristol. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #18th century #story set

Two-book deal marks new beginnings for Erin Green with Headline

Headline has acquired two new novels by women's fiction writer Erin Green, the first of which centres on three strangers on holiday. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |

Weekly E-Ranking: The Tattooist leaves its mark

Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz is proving indelible in both the Mass-Market Fiction chart number one—it racked up its 10th consecutive pole last week—and the Weekly E-Book Ranking top spot, which it grabbed for a sixth time. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-12-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #sixth time #heather morris

Three new Mark Billingham novels to Sphere

Sphere has acquired three new novels from Mark Billingham for Little, Brown, the first of which will be a new Tom Thorne novel and the crime writer's 20th novel to date, publishing in 2020. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-12-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #crime writer #mark billingham

Weekly E-Ranking: Martin’s Fire fails to light up chart

The Tattooist of Auschwitz claims its fifth Weekly E-Book Ranking number one, not as a plucky upstart, but from a position of strength. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-12-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |

Virago to shed light on everyday sexism in the music industry

Virago has acquired pop culture critic and author Amy Raphael’s book, A Seat at the Table, seeking to address gender imbalance at all levels of the music industry. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-12-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #music industry #shed light

Facebook defends Mark Zuckerberg's exposed emails

The social network publishes a detailed rebuttal of some of the claims made against it. Continue reading at BBC World

[ BBC World | 2018-12-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |

Transworld to mark Wood's 25th anniversary with library giveaway

Transworld is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the publication of Val Wood's first novel, The Hungry Tide (Penguin Random House), by giving out 10 sets of all the author’s books to Hull libraries. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-11-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #25th anniversary

Sargeant gives Freshers' Week 'a dark twist' for HarperCollins

HarperCollins will next year publish The Roommates, “a compelling” standalone psychological thriller by Rachel Sargeant that gives Freshers’ Week “a dark twist”. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-11-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |

National Book Awards: Isabel Allende warns of 'dark time'

The author spoke out at the National Book Awards against the rise of "nationalism and racism" in politics. Continue reading at BBC News

[ BBC News | 2018-11-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |

New Horrid Henry book to mark series' 25th anniversary in 2019

Francesca Simon is publishing a new Horrid Henry book in 2019 with Hachette Children's Group as part of the series' 25th birthday celebrations. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-11-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #hachette children #francesca simon #25th anniversary

Hera signs 'sexy, dark' Bollywood thriller for inaugural title

Hera Books has acquired a three-book series of "sexy, dark" thrillers set in the world of Bollywood by crime writer Alex Khan. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-11-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #three-book series #hera books

League of laureates join forces to mark two decades of role

A tour of former Children’s Laureates and a celebratory anthology are just some of the plans being put together to mark next year’s 20th anniversary of the Waterstones Children’s Laureate role. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-11-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #20th anniversary #waterstones children

Chinese Investment Firm Takes Stake in Dark Horse

A major investment stake from Chinese media firm Vanguard Visionary Associates will be used to fund publishing projects at Dark Horse in addition to creating a development fund for film projects based on Dark Horse comics properties Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2018-11-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #dark horse

Knights Of marks first birthday with pop-up bookshop

Inclusive publisher Knights Of is marking its first birthday by opening a pop-up bookshop inside Brixton Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-10-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |

Hodder & Stoughton Marks 150 Years in Book Publishing

At 150 and now owned by Hachette, the UK's Hodder & Stoughton has a huge list of hits to its name and was ahead of the Penguin paperback revolution with pocket-size hardcovers in the 1920s. The post Hodder & Stoughton Marks 150 Years in Book Publishing appeared first on Publishing... Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2018-10-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #hodder stoughton #book publishing

'Tattooist of Auschwitz' makes its mark on charts top spot

Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Zaffre) has swiped the UK Official Top 50 number one spot from Zoe Sugg’s Cordially Invited (Hodder & Stoughton), selling 25,567 copies through Nielsen BookScan’s Total Consumer Market. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-10-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #nielsen bookscan #zoe sugg #heather morris

Facebook cracks down on ‘dark ads’ by British political groups

Social network hopes launch of transparency tools will restore trust after series of scandalsFacebook will no longer allow British political groups to publish “dark ads” on its network, in an attempt to restore public trust after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and questions over its influence... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2018-10-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #brexit referendum #restore trust

Teenage kicks: Illustrator Small takes Dark turn

We spoke to award-winning children’s illustrator David Small, who returns this October with a "fictional follow-up" to his 2009 memoir Stitches. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2018-10-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #award-winning children