SHORTLISTED FOR THE ONDAATJE PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL WRITING PRIZE

'Witty, polished, honest and insightful, The Epic City is likely to become for Calcutta what Suketu Mehta's classic Maximum City is for Mumbai' William Dalrymple, Observer

When Kushanava Choudhury arrived in New Jersey at the age of twelve, he had already migrated halfway around the world four times.

After graduating from Princeton, he moved back to Calcutta, the city which his immigrant parents had abandoned. Taking a job at a newspaper, he found the streets of his childhood unchanged. Shouting hawkers still overran the footpaths, fish sellers squatted on bazaar floors; and politics still meant barricades and bus burnings.

The Epic City is a soulful, compelling and often hilarious account of this metropolis of fifteen million people that is truly a world unto itself.

'A beautifully observed and even more beautifully written new study of Calcutta' Guardian

Prizes

Short-listed for Ondaatje Prize 2018 (UK)

A beautifully observed and even more beautifully written new study of Calcutta. In Kushanava Choudhury, we clearly have an important new talent * Guardian *
He transmits the self-renewing, infinitely modern energy of the city, which seems everywhere decaying but in fact is always “just beginning” * Spectator *
A beautifully observed and even more beautifully written new study of Calcutta. In its author, Kushanava Choudhury, we clearly have an important new talent * William Dalrymple, Guardian, Summer Reading *
Kushanava Choudhury offers a more personal account of what he regards as “the epic city” in this brilliantly eloquent memoir * Prospect *
Like all good epics, Choudhury’s heartfelt and well-observed portrait of the city of his birth promises to stand the test of time * Literary Review *
Beautifully observed and even more beautifully written, The Epic City marks the arrival of a major new talent -- William Dalrymple

Kushanava Choudhury grew up in Calcutta and New Jersey. After graduating from Princeton University he worked as a reporter at the Statesman in Calcutta. He went on to receive a PhD in Political Theory from Yale University before returning to Calcutta to write a book about the city. The Epic City is his first book.