The Indigo Press acquires Pia Ghosh-Roy's 'intergenerational and experimental' debut
The Indigo Press has acquired Pia Ghosh-Roy’s "intergenerational and experimental" debut novel. Publisher Susie Nicklin bought world rights in all languages to And I Am The Arrow from Amy St Johnston (the author is now represented by Monica MacSwan) at Aitken Alexander Associates. Rights have already been sold to India (Picador) and Italy (Editrice Nord).
The novel has been described as a "compulsive saga of three generations of women and the ghost of a man cut in two on a train track, spanning Calcutta, London and New York". The synopsis continues: "Chatterjee Mansion is a 1940s Art Deco house in Calcutta with floors of polished marble and rooms filled with lies and omissions. In this house, late on a rain-soaked night, the turn of a single key unlocks a story that throws its women on a journey across the worlds of the living and the dead and shatters all they know to be true.
"Trying to make sense of this world is Mishu, a young woman recently returned to India, just as Niyoti, her grandmother and the family matriarch, falls into a coma. As Mishu, her mother Ira and their servant Bani wait to see if Niyoti wakes or leaves them forever, long-buried truths come to the surface, revealing a rich and dramatic story of India’s social and political struggles entwined with the family’s gains and sacrifices."
Ghosh-Roy grew up in Calcutta, India, and lives in Cambridge, UK. She worked in advertising as a copywriter for more than a decade before turning to fiction.
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Ghosh-Roy said: "It’s a strange, unsettling feeling to hand over a world you’ve spent 10 years building and let out into the open a cast of characters who started life from scratch in your living room. But, And I Am The Arrow could not have been held and guided out by anyone better than Susie, Monica and Amy. They understood this novel – its place and its people, its rhythms and idiosyncrasies – in a way that gave it the space to be wholly itself. I could not be more grateful to have them with me on this journey."
Nicklin said: "I am a big fan of family sagas and also of experimental fiction that encompasses philosophy, art and polyphonic voices. So, it was a total joy to find both genres in this complex and utterly absorbing debut from Pia Ghosh-Roy. Kolkata was the place I first visited in India and where I encountered adda, the sprawling, virtuosic art of debate and wordplay; Pia has integrated this cultural artefact into a compelling narrative that delivers surprises, pathos, tragedy and charm. The memorable four women of Chatterjee Mansion will bewitch you."
