![]() ![]() ![]() The mainstream is blond, white, young, slim. because of his nationality, looks, skin colour. Compulsively cruising the toilets of Oxford, Ritvik "realizes, in slow stages, that his is a type of minority appeal, catering to the 'special interest' group. Most strikingly, Ritwik is gay and Mukherjee (right) writes wonderfully and wryly about the young man's exploration of everyday gay life. If this at first seems like familiar territory in the postcolonial novel of displacement, be assured that in Mukherjee's hands, it is a very much more original idea.Ī number of things make this impressive debut stand out. Having buried both his parents in Calcutta, Ritwik Ghosh arrives in Oxford, a scholarship boy studying English literature, and confronts dislocation and detachment. The protagonists have different expectations from their move to England and are anxious to be included, as they only half-belong to the world they are in. As the title to Neel Mukherjee's first novel suggests, this is a story about never quite being a part of the worlds one inhabits. Odysseus Abroad and A Life Apart highlight the questions of loneliness, isolation, homesickness and attempts to adjust. ![]()
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