Description

‘Beautifully written’
DAILY MAIL

‘Heady, sensually described, deeply felt’
GUARDIAN

‘A maximalist epic that grabs you by the collar’
THE STATESMAN

‘Riotously audacious and entertaining – cinematic, jazzlike, a humdinger of a novel’ KAMILA SHAMSIE

‘A humane and atmospheric love letter to a vibrant and irrepressible city’
DAILY MAIL

‘I can’t remember the last time I read a book as grand as Ruchir Joshi’s Great Eastern Hotel … the city in this novel is a living thing’
THE TELEGRAPH INDIA

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.

‘Joshi’s ability to render place and time is truly first-rate. I’ve not read a book by an author this year who so clearly loves what he’s writing about’
GUARDIAN

‘A wild romp that ends with the scent of river water in your nose and the breath of a flute in your ears’
INDIA TODAY

‘If, like me, you have been waiting for a quarter of a century for what Ruchir would write after his dazzling The Last Jet-Engine Laugh, I have some Persian for you: Der aayad, durast aayad. Finally, an Indian epic for our times’ MOHAMMED HANIF

‘A film-maker’s novel, so vividly immersive … at once human and epic, a Joycean polyphony of overlapping lives’ JEET THAYIL

‘Sprawling … exuberant …compelling … allow yourself to be immersed in this Great Calcutta Novel that captures both the sweep of history and the pulse of individual lives’
SCROLL.IN

Publisher Review

‘Sprawling … exuberant …compelling … allow yourself to be immersed in this Great Calcutta Novel that captures both the sweep of history and the pulse of individual lives’ Scroll.in

‘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

‘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

‘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

‘Sprawling and ambitious … There is a forceful and robust beauty to Joshi’s prose … Joshi’s city teems with stories and he peoples it with a riotous assortment of personalities’ Open Magazine

‘Every phrase and image has been honed to perfection … Read it for a masterclass in the joy of writing from the heart’ Deccan Herald

‘Joshi has managed the impossible with this book – he has captured every nuance and quirk of Calcutta and its people, everything that makes the city both unique and ubiquitously Indian … an extraordinary achievement … I am so happy I read this book’ The Asian Age

‘A film-maker’s novel, so vividly immersive it makes mid-forties Calcutta a living being, at once human and epic, a Joycean polyphony of overlapping lives and a granular history of the nation during wartime’ Jeet Thayil, author of Narcopolis

‘Glorious, brimming with life, Great Eastern Hotel contains multitudes. Ruchir Joshi captures crumbling empires and wayward human lives in this headlong, sensory dive into 1940s Calcutta. A towering novel – one for our times, and for all time’ Nilanjana S. Roy, author of Our Freedoms