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"Magnificent . . . I would follow Miss Chitol to the ends of the earth." -Kamila Shamsie
"Profoundly tender [and] vigorously alive to the currents of national change." -Megha Majumdar
A breathtaking novel about a woman forging a life for herself on the railways, Railsong is the heartwarming story of an individual coming of age amid the social and political upheavals of twentieth-century India.
In a newly independent India charged with national vigour, Charu, the motherless daughter of a railway worker, pines for freedom from the shackles of her impoverishment and meagre prospects. As diesel engines replace steam and the calamitous churn of drought, famine, and a great strike engulfs her town, Charu dares to imagine a different future for herself. She boards a train and flees westwards, leaving behind the oppressive domesticity of her childhood for the alluring modernity, and apparent opportunities, of Bombay.
Unfazed by the everyday discriminations around her she becomes an unlikely hero: a railway woman and census enumerator who keeps her heart open-sometimes guilelessly-to her nation's vast possibility. Sweeping, elegiac, and at times wonderfully comic, Railsong is a powerful portrait of grit, optimism, and the force of character that enables one remarkable woman to live on her own terms in a country full of contradictions.
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.
“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
“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, bestselling author of National Book Award Finalist A GUARDIAN AND A THIEF
“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
“Does anyone write better prose than Rahul Bhattacharya? Every word in this gorgeous, darting novel is a surprise. Bhattacharya has created an epic out of a single life.” —Karan Mahajan, author of National Book Award Finalist THE ASSOCIATION OF SMALL BOMBS
“Few works capture, with such effectiveness, the profound political and social transformations of the last decades of the twentieth century-tracing their impact from the grassroots to the highest levels of society. Negotiating the subtle, intricate bond between the language of lived experience and the language of narration, Rahul Bhattacharya meets that challenge with remarkable assurance, Railsong is a testament to the depth and brilliance of his craft. Charu's solitude permeates the novel, even when she is surrounded by people, even when she performs every duty with care. Rarely has writing so comprehensively, and precisely captured this haunting feeling-the silent burden of the missing-that stands as the novel's greatest achievement and its most profound triumph.” —Vivek Shanbhag, author of GHACHAR GHOCHAR
“Rahul Bhattacharya's Railsong is a novel of rare attentiveness - to the turns of a life, to the slow sediment of time. It creates an extraordinary archive from a single life, thick with everydayness, layered with complexity and profundity. Even when I wasn't reading, I found myself thinking about the world of Railsong, for in Ms. Chitol, Bhattacharya gives us a heroine to hold in one's heart.” —Aanchal Malhotra, author of THE BOOK OF EVERLASTING THINGS
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