Small Deaths, Rijula Das
Small Deaths, Rijula Das
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Small Deaths

Author: Rijula Das

Narrator: Deepa Samuel

Unabridged: 10 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/13/2022

Synopsis

A staggering debut novel of murder, loyalty, love, and survival at all costs, set in the teeming underbelly of Calcutta’s most infamous neighborhood.In Calcutta’s notorious red-light district, Lalee aspires to a better life. Her unfailingly loyal client Tilu Shau has dreams too. A heady romantic and marginal novelist, Tilu is in love with the indifferent Lalee and wants to liberate her from her street life with marriage. But when a fellow sex worker and young mother is brutally murdered, the solicitous madam of the Blue Lotus invites Lalee to take the woman’s place “upstairs” as a high-end escort. The offer comes with the promise of a more lucrative life but quickly spirals into violence, corruption, and unfathomable secrets that threaten to upset the fragile stability of Lalee’s very existence. As Tilu is drawn deeper into his rescue mission, he and Lalee embark on life-altering journeys to escape a savage fate.As much a page-turner as it is poignant, Small Deaths is a brilliantly drawn modern noir that exposes the reality of society’s preyed-upon outcasts, their fierce resilience, and the dangerous impediments that stand in the way of their dignity, love, and survival.Revised edition: Previously published as A Death in Shonagachhi, this edition of Small Deaths includes editorial revisions.

About Rijula Das

Rijula Das is an author and Bengali-to-English translator. She received her PhD in creative writing and prose-fiction from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where she taught writing. Rijula received a 2019 Michael King Writers Centre Residency in Auckland, New Zealand, and the 2016 Dastaan Award for her short story “Notes from a Passing.” Her short story “The Grave of the Heart Eater” was long-listed for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2019. Rijula’s short fiction and translations have appeared in Papercuts, Newsroom, New Zealand, and the Hindu. Small Deaths, her first novel, was long-listed for the JCB Prize for Literature and won the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award in 2021. It is currently being adapted for television. She lives and works in Wellington, New Zealand. For more information visit www.rijuladas.com.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Avani ✨

A Death In Shonagachhi by Rijula Das, a book longlisted for JCB prize list. It's a Literary Fiction / Literary Noir and no, it's not a murder mystery. The book is a revelation of a community and a place which needs more light and recognition in today's time. The book going to be published in the US......more

Goodreads review by Jyotsna

This is just vanilla. Plain vanilla. He was calling his invisible target a multitude of names, though most of them were variations on the theme of prostitute . lt's amazing, thought Lalee, how many synonyms one language could have devised and seemed to need for women who sell their bodies for money......more

Goodreads review by Bandita

Nominated for the JCB Prize this year, this novel is a dive into Asia’s biggest red light area. The story starts when an erotica writer Tilu goes to Lalee, a prostitute he claims to love deeply. But when they are busy doing the business, the woman next to Lalee’s room, Mohmaya, is brutally murdered.......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer

DNF, sadly all the misogyny is killing me. If this is the level of misogynistic attitudes in India I feel for the women under this horrible oppressive system but I just can't keep reading something that is this upsetting. I have to take care of my own mental health. I will give the writing itself th......more

Goodreads review by Mairead

My Review ~ 3.5* Small Deaths by Rijula Das will be published on September 13th with Amazon Crossing and is described as 'literary noir...as absorbing as it is heart-wrenching, holding within it an unforgettable story of our society’s outcasts and marking the arrival of a riveting new writer.' Sm......more

Quotes

“[Rijula] Das’s searing debut centers on the plight of sex workers in contemporary Calcutta, India…This devastating novel is in turn touching and painful to read. Das, a Bengali-to-English translator, is definitely a writer to watch.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)“A deeply human portrait…bitterly cynical, surprisingly humorous, and astonishingly beautiful.” —CrimeReads“Rijula Das has evaded the prevalent tropes of writing. It is very difficult to pin down the genre she is writing in—is it a love story, for instance; is it a murder mystery; is it a novel about social justice? The book gives light to the popular and wrong notion that literature needs to necessarily be heavy. It manages to achieve everything that good literature does while at the same time being entertaining. It is full of beautiful humorous touches and outstanding at zooming in to details.” —Judges of the JCB Prize for Literature 2021

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