Opening in Calcutta in the 1960s, Ghosh’s radiant second novel follows two families – one English, one Bengali – as their lives intertwine in tragic and comic ways. The narrator, Indian-born and English educated, traces events back and forth in time, through years of Bengali partition and violence, observing the ways in which political events invade private lives. The Shadow Lines is a “stunning novel, a rare work that balances formal ingenuity, heart, and mind” – New Republic
