The book was introduced by publisher Sunandan Roy Chowdhury, and the author read portions from the original
French
while the translator read the English version. After that, the publisher and the author had a dialogue. The event took held at the
French Residence on Thursday, July 23, 2015.
Ghosts of Calcutta: Calcutta lends itself to both reality and imagination. Novelists build their cast of characters with the city as the backdrop, while writers examine the city's history. Few, though, can mix reality and fantasy as well as
Sebastien Ortiz. The mix of history lives, and mythologies in Ghosts of Calcutta is fascinating. Here, reality meets fiction, and fiction follows the back roads of history. Palaces in ruins border the pathways of the past, creating a history in the present. The present is also a tangle of lives and love.
Ghosts of Calcutta takes you on a journey through a city that exists in the past and creates a story that is both fantastic and true. We come across comments from
Borges in the story, where he states, 'India is greater than the globe.' If it is true, the protagonist of this tale believes that Calcutta is larger than India. Is it possible?
Fabrice Etienne goes by the pen name Sebastien Ortiz. He has worked in
French
missions in Indonesia, Burma, and, most recently, Calcutta, India, as a professional
diplomat. Early in childhood, he fell in love with literature, and his second obsession,
Asia, has kept him enthralled for the past twenty-five years or so.
