Great Eastern Hotel
- Auteur: Ruchir Joshi (India)
- Soort boek: Indiase roman
- Taal: Engels
- Uitgever: Fourth Estate
- Verschijnt: 17 juli 2025
- Omvang: 920 pagina’s
- Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
- Prijs: £ 18,99 / £ 9,99
- Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris
Ruchir Joshi Great Eastern Hotel recensie en review
- “Great Eastern Hotel isn’t just a love letter to a lost city – it’s a lusty, brawling, cigarette-stained, gin-soaked declaration that history belongs as much to the pickpocket in the shadows as to the statesman in the ballroom.” (The Statesman)
- “Has there been a novel of such scale since A Suitable Boy? … this novel serves as a meditation on what was, what is and perhaps what will be.” (Outlook India)
- “Joshi scales down the event calendar and blows up the human drama so skillfully that his ordinary characters become magnificent creatures, anything but hapless victims of history … The novel thrums with a visceral passion for its subject.” (Frontline)
Flaptekst van de roman van de Indiase schrijver en filmmaker Ruchir Joshi
August 1941. The world is at war. At the Great Eastern, Calcutta’s most luxurious hotel, amidst the feasting, dancing and laughter, we witness the metropolis in the last moments before disaster strikes.
On the day the revered poet Rabindranath Tagore dies, the city comes to a standstill. Thousands of people line the streets to pay their respects. Amongst them are: Nirupama, a history student and Communist Party volunteer; Imogen, the English daughter of a Raj official; Kedar, an aspiring painter; and Gopal, a young pickpocket who finds himself promoted into a dark, dangerous world.
The lives of these four people intertwine with those at the hotel: an American soldier who plays jazz at the nightclub; a genius French chef; an heiress fleeing from the nightmare in Europe; and a group of military officers running a secret intelligence operation.
Magisterial in scope, rich in detail and gloriously entertaining, Great Eastern Hotel brings to life India on the brink of independence. An epic tale of belonging, love, art and how individual lives can become swept up in the tides of history.
Ruchir Joshi is born in 1960 in Kolkata, India. He is a trained and practising filmmaker in India. Born and raised in Calcutta, he now lives in Delhi.