JSLL is delighted to invite you to a book talk by Ruchir Joshi titled:
"Great Eastern Hotel | The Greatest New Historical Fiction"

Date: Wednesday, 19th March 2025
Time: 12:30 PM (onwards)
Venue: 47, Mezzanine Floor, T3

About the Author
Ruchir Joshi is a writer and film-maker based in Calcutta. He authored The Last Jet-Engine Laugh and Poriborton! – An Election Diary, edited Electric Feather, and has contributed widely to leading magazines and newspapers, while also directing award-winning documentaries such as Eleven Miles.

About the Book
The world is at war. And at the Great Eastern, Calcutta’s most luxurious hotel, amidst the feasting, dancing and laughter, we witness the metropolis in the last moments before multiple disasters strike.

The story begins in August 1941, on the day Rabindranath Tagore dies. The city has come to a standstill as thousands of people line the streets to pay their respects. Among them are: Nirupama, a student of history and a volunteer with the Communist Party of India; Imogen, a young Englishwoman whose father is an official with the Raj; Kedar, the scion of a wealthy family, who dreams of painting like Cézanne; and Gopal, a young but experienced pickpocket, who finds himself promoted into a dark, dangerous world.

Their lives intertwine with those at the hotel: an American soldier who plays jazz at the nightclub; a genius French chef; an heiress fleeing from the nightmare in Europe; and a group of military officers running a secret intelligence operation.

Singularly ambitious and attentive, Ruchir Joshi’s Great Eastern Hotel maps this simmering pause at a crucial juncture in history, and offers new contexts to the upheavals of our present, raising vital questions about political commitment, nationalism, love and art.

Discussants: Prof. Somdatta Bhattacharya and Prof. Nishtha Gautam (JSLL)

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