C: A Novel tells the story of a nameless wanderer—a writer—as she moves between two cities and across centuries, coming to terms with her myriad emotions and strange experiences. It is also, in a sense, a tale of two cities that are dear to the protagonist for ‘C’ is the name of the dark, sunless city she visits on a writing sabbatical, and also a reference to her bright native city that she has left behind. The story is narrated in two voices: one the protagonist’s and the other that of the city without the sun, where her every waking moment is suffused with memories of a distant lover, and where she meets an ethereal woman from another time.
Written in prose and poetry, Anupama Raju’s remarkable debut novel takes readers on multiple journeys with the protagonist through time and the winding streets of the cities she is in thrall to. And as we journey with her we are given profound and memorable insights into love, pain, loss, regret, history, joy, hope, and possibility.
Review
‘Lyrical, intense, and innovative, Anupama Raju brings a poet’s diction and a fabulist’s imagination to her first novel, a palimpsest of ideas and inventions in which a woman may cross the Cs and share notes on the economics of love and loss with a time traveller from a distant land.’
—Jerry Pinto, author of Em and the Big Hoom
‘This intense, intriguing, shapeshifter of a novel brilliantly blends poetics and prose narrative through a multilayered catalogue of intuition and emotion.’
—Namita Gokhale
About the Author
Anupama Raju is a poet, communications professional, literary journalist, and translator. She is the author of Nine and her work has been anthologized and published widely. She collaborated with French photographer Pascal Bernard on two Indo-French poetry and photography projects ‘Surfaces and Depths’ and ‘Une Ville, Un Lieu, Une Personne’. She was Charles Wallace Fellow at the University of Kent, Canterbury, and Writer-in-Residence at Centres Intermondes, La Rochelle, France.
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