New York, Paris, London: All of them inspired more great works of literature than we can count. Could Kolkata be next? This fall sees the publication of two books set in India’s third-largest city. The first is Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Lowland, about two brothers growing up in the post-colonial city (Knopf, $28). The second is Calcutta: Two Years in the City, Amit Chaudhuri’s homage to his birthplace (Knopf, $26). We asked Chaudhuri, who now teaches in England, to tell us what he loves most about his hometown.


“My favorite thing about Kolkata isn’t its landmarks or museums—it’s the homes, specifically, residences built in the last 60 to 90 years. The old mansions of north Kolkata were erected by nouveau riche Bengalis, many of them rural landlords who migrated to Calcutta in the nineteenth century. But although they’re interesting, I find the houses in which the middle class have lived for the last hundred years even more so. Each one of these homes (you can see examples of them in south Kolkata neighborhoods such as Bhowanipore or Paddapukur) is part of a larger family of houses that are marked by certain features—slatted French windows to look out onto the street; lintels to keep doors shut; patterned grilles against some windows. And yet for all of this, no two houses are identical. Because the middle class has had to migrate outward in the last 40 years—given Kolkata’s resistance to investment and its declining fortunes—many of these residences are being sold and torn down, and high-rises or malls have taken their place. Kolkata came into its own during that peculiar phase in history, modernity—which is why these homes are still the city’s true monuments.”