Mallika Sengupta's voice could have made her famous, but being the wife of a successful businessman is a full-time occupation in itself.
Mallika's son, Nirmalya, believes in suffering for his art, and for him, all compromise is failure: those with talent should be true to that talent. No matter what.
Amit Chaudhuri was born in Calcutta in 1962 and brought up in Bombay. He has published four previous novels, and a collection of short stories, and his work has appeared in various publications, including the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, Granta and the New Yorker. Winner of the Betty Trask Award, the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Book, the Encore Award for Best Second Novel and the LA Times Book Prize for Fiction, he lives in Calcutta with his wife and daughter.