Dear Reader : A Writer’s Memoir

One of India’s finest writers looks back on a long and eventful literary journey – through changing times and a changing India’ – Ruskin Bond Sankar’s life as a writer began when he decided to honour his deceased employer, Noel Barwell, by writing a book-building a statue or naming a road after Barwell weren’t feasible options. The result was the novel Kato Ajanare (The Great Unknown). Although he was dismissed by his peers as a ‘one-book writer’ and told he wouldn’t amount to anything in the world of literature, he persevered, creating an oeuvre that boasts, among others, bestsellers like Chowringhee, Jana Aranya (The Middleman) and Seemabaddha (Limited Company). In Dear Reader, originally published as Eka Eka Ekashi in Bengali, Sankar reflects on his own life. From his mother and grandmother to his teachers and headmasters, he writes fondly of the women and men who shaped his youth; and of legendary figures like Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay, Sibram Chakraborty and Sunil Gangopadhyay who stroll in and out of famous neighbourhoods like Howrah Station, College Street Boipara, Burrabazar. Superbly translated by Arunava Sinha, this is Sankar’s love letter to an ever-changing city and its people.