A literary glimpse into the early decades of independent India.
Drawing influences from Indian folktales, French existentialism, and the
Bengali Hungryalist movement, Rajkamal Chaudhary's oeuvre is like a
secret back alley in an old city--not completely forgotten but existing
only for the few. Even though Chaudhary also wrote in Maithili and
Bengali, it was his writings in Hindi that established him as the bold
new experimentalist of Indian literature. His India of the 1950 and 60s
is populated with hopeless literature professors, scattered alcohol
bottles, prostitutes, hysteria patients, and sell-out painters. His
unconventional life and writing place him outside the mainstream, and so
he remains as uncategorizable as the characters and lives he wrote
about. Bringing together twelve of his most representative short
stories, translated for the first time in English, Traces of Boots on
Tongue and Other Stories allows a glimpse into the early decades of
independent India and its weariness, which many readers will find in
today's India as well.