‘Rijula Das has evaded the prevalent tropes of writing. The book manages to achieve everything that good literature does while at the same time being entertaining’ 2021 JCB Prize Jury

‘A Death in Shonagachhi, through its finely developed characters and settings, takes us deep into the hidden and harsh universes of the layered city of Calcutta. Using her fly-on-the-wall method, Rijula Das accomplishes a level of interiority that can compare itself to Upton Sinclair’s seminal novel, The Jungle’ Sarnath Banerjee, author of Corridor and All Quiet in Vikaspuri

‘Addictive and hilarious. Rijula Das is a writer to watch’ Avni Doshi, author of Burnt Sugar

‘Rijula Das surprises you with everything in this book – the writing, the scenes, the characters, the story. A debut you cannot stop reading’ Arunava Sinha, translator of Chowringhee and Tiger Woman

‘From its electric opening to its sobering end, and even thereafter, Rijula Das's A Death in Shonagachhi will colonize your mind. Here, set within the form of a murder mystery, is a deeply sensitive portrait of life (and death) in a red-light district. Rijula is unafraid of accessing interiorities and of where they take her. Decades ago in France, Jean-Patrick Manchette called the crime novel the great moral literature of our times. This novel seems to take that maxim to heart’ Tanuj Solanki, author of Diwali in Muzaffarnagar and The Machine is Learning

‘A hard-hitting portrayal of life and death in [a] red-light district’ BusinessLine

‘A gem of a novel … a superb debut … it deserves every prize, accolade and palm frond that comes its way’ India Today

‘A pointillist story about a sex worker's life, A Death in Shonagachhi is a skilled debut’ Hindu

‘Riveting … Das weaves threads of pathos, humour, squalor and kindness into her narrative. She flits in and out of the minds of characters, hoping to leave you with different vantage points’ Firstpost

‘This debut novel eschews a smart script in favour of the real, messy world … Das enters this world boldly’ Scroll.in

‘Finely calibrated … Bold and unflinching in its portrayal of the hapless lives of sex workers and their vulnerabilities, their “unheaved sighs” and unexpressed sorrows, their sense of defeat and fatalism – made worse by a system that maltreats them, handles them with contempt and derision – the novel urges us to face up to some unpalatable truths’ News9

‘This novel transforms and gradually unravels an honest and unsettling narrative of Shonagachhi’s inner life. It pulsates with some unforgettable characters and heart-warming friendships … A truly genre-bending [novel]’ Feminism in India

Rijula Das received her PhD in Creative Writing in 2017 from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where she taught writing for two years. She is a recipient of the 2019 Michael King Writers Centre Residency in Auckland and the 2016 Dastaan Award for her short story ‘Notes from a Passing’. Her short story ‘The Grave of The Heart Eater’ was longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2019. A Death in Shonagachhi is her first novel. Rijula is from West Bengal and lives in Wellington, New Zealand.