Nearly ten years ago, the author, critic and classical Indian musician Amit Chaudhuri took up a visiting fellowship in Paris. It’s not quite clear from the pages of his autobiographical novel Château Rouge which branch of his professional life was to be nurtured by the experience, officially at least, but a glance at this slim hardback, liberally adorned with creative white space, will tell you that it is a book which leaves many things unsaid.
Chaudhuri is determined to escape the oppressive influence of the many other writers who have gone before him, to try to see this great city afresh. Chief among these is inevitably Ernest Hemingway, a man with whom, on the face of things, Chaudhuri would have little to talk about if they were to meet. (The ‘time machine’, which Chaudhuri occasionally deploys in Château Rouge as a way of considering the survival of parts of Paris that still look and feel like Paris, would make this a theoretical possibility, though it’s not one he entertains.)
Most popular
Madeline Grant
Keir Starmer’s biggest problem was always right behind him at PMQs
