SHADOWLAND IS OUT

It took me sixteen years to find a publisher for this novel.

Publisher: Gangchil, Kolkata, India.

Length: 335 pages, Literary fiction.

Shadowland is the story of a struggling doctor who seeks to survive, retain his sanity and obtain justice after he is stripped of his right to a small plot of land in a suburban town in the fringes of the metropolis, Kolkata. Set against the backdrop of the degenerate Marxist regime in West Bengal in the nineties, Shadowland is a compelling narrative of an individual’s long battle with the powers-that-be and a masterly portrait of contemporary India.

WHAT READERS SAY

Mrinal Bose has really captured that grey miasma of frustrated anger morphing into lethargy and depression … such a quiet book, and so heavy with sorrow. Kalyani Menon Sen, feminist researcher & activist.

Mrinal Bose sketches a trenchant and revealing portrait of suburban Kolkata in the late twentieth century. The tale of Dr. Mitra’s stoic persistence in the face of the ongoing indignities that are thrust upon him is a metonym for the fortitude and resolve with which the citizens of Bengal struggled (and continue to struggle) through exceedingly difficult days. Shadowland is an important historical document about the corruption, indifference and impunity that defined the final years of communist rule in West Bengal. It is also a significant anthropological document, rich in detail of the economic, religious, familial, political, and social realities of ordinary life on the periphery of post-colonial Kolkata. It is also an entertaining and well-written story of one man’s struggle against the absurdities of modern life.

Janam Mukherjee, historian & author, Hungry Bengal.