The Town Slowly Empties
On Life and Culture during Lockdown
A latter-day Journal of the Plague Year. Rekindles our ties with culture, and affirms friendship, empathy and love.
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The Town Slowly Empties: On Life and Culture During Lockdown
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Oil On Water is people
A latter-day Journal of the Plague Year. Rekindles our ties with culture, and affirms friendship, empathy and love.
How does one record an extraordinary time? Confined to his Delhi apartment, Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee unravels the intimate paradoxes of life he encounters in the first weeks of a global pandemic. His stories about local fish sellers, gardeners, barbers and lovers merge with his concerns for the exodus of migrant labourers, the challenges faced by health workers, and a mother braving checkposts to bring her son home.
Drawing inspiration from contemporary literature and cinema, The Town Slowly Empties is a unique window on a world desperate for love, care and hope. Manash is our Everyman, urging us to slow down and mend our broken ties with nature.
Written with rare candour and elegance, this meditative book is a compelling account of the human condition that soars high above the empty streets.
Book Specifications
THE TOWN SLOWLY EMPTIES
On Life and Culture during Lockdown
Author: Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee
ISBN: 978-1-909394-75-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-909394-76-6 (ebk)
Street date: 4 February 2021
Category: Memoir/Society & Culture
Size: 127mm x 210mm
Page count: 210
Press Reaction
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“Somehow at home among the many literary and culture references—and discussions of nationalism, Montaigne, and 'the gospel of reason'—we find the quotidian. There, in these personal close-ups, we likely recognize ourselves.”
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“Delightful and provocative.”
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“Lyrical and evocative, this is a pandemic journal with a difference. Deftly capturing the passing of slow
lockdown time in an India otherwise devoted to speed and violence, it demands that we partake in the restorative powers of love, literature, and well-cooked fish.”
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“In this book of quiet meditations, Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee
shows the unique value of sensible, informed and honest thought in a world torn apart by religion and politics in the
grip of a serious pandemic. Ordinary acts — what you cook for breakfast, advice on how to obtain wine, friendship and love, poetry ... alongside the plight of destitute workers, the meaning of masks... The greatest contribution is the author’s sheer calm of mind in a world driven mad by anxiety.”
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“Follows numerous fine examples from world literature. They all share an ethical necessity to remain awakened through language, to write and to chronicle in times of severe grief and tragedy. In his diary from the first three weeks of the surge of Covid-19 in India, Manash interweaves captivating observations, piercing personal memories and essayistic reflections with a double goal: to bear witness and to remain a human being.”
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“Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee negotiates the Covidocene, navigating through an everyday experience rendered radically
unrecognisable by pandemic. What sustains the narratorprotagonist
of this beautiful and compelling memoir of our very own plague year is his passionate, full-bodied immersion
in culture.”
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“This is a remarkable work in many ways — whether in terms of the sheer quality of the writing or the way in which the writer combines an account of the material reality of lockdown with history, literature and philosophy. The cultural criticism is breathtaking in its range.”
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