Winner of an English PEN award With her days split between a passionate marriage and a high-octane television studio job, Homi is a thoroughly modern young woman - until one day she is approached by a yogi in the street. This mysterious figure begins to follow her everywhere, visible only to Homi, who finds him both frightening and inexplicably arousing. Convinced that the yogi is a manifestation of fate, Homi embarks on a series of increasingly desperate attempts to prove that her life is ruled by her own free will, much to the alarm of her no-nonsense husband and cattily snobbish mother. Her middle-class Kolkata life, and the relationships that define her identity, are disturbed to the point of disintegration. Following the inexorable pull of tradition, the mystic forces that run beneath the shallow surface of our modern existence like red earth beneath the pavements, Homi ends up in Benaras, the holy city on the banks of the Ganga, where her final battle with fate plays out.
About the AuthorSangeeta Bandyopadhyay is the author of Panty, Abandon and The Yogini. She has written nine novels and over fifty short stories since her controversial debut Shankini was first published in Bengali in 2006. Also a newspaper columnist and film critic, Sangeeta is based in Kolkata.
ReviewsPraise for Panty: `An unnerving, ominous and beautiful meditation on the loneliness of modern life.' - The Guardian. Praise for Abandon: `Abandon is a bold, important and formidable novel about the demands of life and the responsibilities we have, both to others and to ourselves.' - Lucy Scholes, The National
AwardsWinner of English Pen Award 2019.
Book InformationISBN 9781911284277
Author Sangeeta BandyopadhyayFormat Paperback
Imprint Tilted Axis PressPublisher Tilted Axis Press
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 17mm