Great Eastern Hotel

A rich, teeming, involving epic of war, famine, love and culture-clash in imperial Calcutta during World War Two - Joshi is ‘The brand new experience after Rushdie: a megashow, Russian in size, Indian in soul’ (India Today) This is the second novel from Ruchir Joshi, author of The Last Jet-Engine Laugh which many stubbornly continue to believe is a twisted, flawed masterpiece of a debut novel. In India that book was greeted as the most significant Indian debut since Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Joshi is the real thing, and here to stay and thrive as a writer. This new book is a brilliant prospect, promising a rich, teeming, involving tale with an unusual, fascinating setting - the fading imperial city of Calcutta in the 1940s, with world war, famine, culture-clash, colonial retreat, exile, rebellion, idealism and religious strife all in the mix. It will be less formally daring than his first (i.e. less jump-cutting time-wise), which, commercially speaking, is probably good news. And it will have all the epic sweep, resilience of the human spirit and war-torn romance that make for blockbuster success!