Krishnagopal Mallick is a literary rarity: sub-editing for an English daily, giving it up to print and publish Bengali little magazines at a press set up at his own home, and then producing essays, short stories, travelogues, memoirs, and novels marked by a dazzling candour and a beguiling lucidity. His words transport us to a North Kolkata of trams, lanes and by-lanes. His unselfconscious prose pulls us into a life lived with honesty and joy.
Rarely has Bengali literature witnessed such clear-eyed narratives of public and private violence, sexuality, and humour. These translations introduce to the readers a craftsman of deadpan story-telling who infuses North Kolkata with a queer radiance unmatched in Indian writing. Once one enters the maze of Krishnagopal Mallick, one cannot emerge unmoved, unchanged, unaffected.
Winner of The Rainbow Awards for Literature and Journalism 2023, Fiction
