This novel is set in a surreal world, with two cities named ‘C’, where the entire narrative is taking place.
I found this gem of a book at the Oxford Cover Contest where I think this book was also participating for its unique cover and title. Yes, you heard it right, that’s what caught my attention, this book’s unique title ‘C’ and the cover page itself. I wondered what could be the reason the author had chosen such a strange name, just a capital C for the book, so I read the Blurb there only and I immediately knew that it was going to be my next read.
I am a slow reader, so I took my time to slowly devour the book’s content, and that too when the writer makes you travel between two cities named ‘C’, you are in no rush, because you want to explore alongside her. The story is narrated in first person by a nameless wanderer who goes to a sunless city called ‘C’ to finish her new writing project. Yes, you read it right, the sunless city where there are no mornings but only nights throughout the year and all the time. People, places, and even events all take place in a dark sunless city and the descriptions are amazingly vivid that you would feel like you are there too soaking in the chilliness of the nights from the sunless ‘C’. The narrator shares many episodes of her experiences in the course of the novel, her childhood days, her relationship with her parents, and her teachers, and how she conceives the love now between her present lover. She seems insecure at many points that he doesn’t love her, but her meeting a mysterious woman named Alice brings about many changes in her outlook towards her lover, her life, and her writing journey altogether.
There is a secret narrator too, who in between comes with the hope that his visitor who is the aimless wandering writer or the protagonist of the story herself will get to know how the sun disappeared from the city ‘C’. Slowly, we saw a beautiful friendship developing between the writer and Alice whom she meets in the sunless city. The story is a slow process that develops over the pages in a relaxed manner, it's surely not a fast read, you must leisurely enjoy each page and let it seep into you. Poetry has met prose so magically in this novel and it seems how effortlessly the author has merged both, the words are flowing like a river of sublime narration.
Apart from the plot, I assume the book could be holding a deeper message, of how rebellious or strong women had always been despised by the male society! Or it could be a soul narration of the author herself, perhaps the author might have imagined herself in such a world wondering how the lives of people would be if there was no sun in a city and her life in it. The novel leaves you with many questions that you might find some answers to, but for that, you will have to enter the author’s Sunless city ‘C’.
Anupama Raju is a poet, literary journalist, communications professional and translator. She is the author of Bitter Gourd, a poetry collection, Copper Coin; C, a novel, Aleph Book Company; and Nine, a poetry collection, Speaking Tiger.
She has been featured in several poetry anthologies and publications. Anupama has been translating short fiction and poetry from Malayalam into English. As a freelance contributor and columnist, she writes for The Hindu and Scroll.in.
Anupama has read at the Jaipur Literature Festival, Hay Festival India, Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Bangalore Poetry Festival, The Hindu Lit for Life, Poetry with Prakriti, Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters and Hyderabad Literature Festival, among others.
A Charles Wallace Fellow at the University of Kent, Canterbury, Anupama was also Writer-in-Residence at Le Centre Intermondes, La Rochelle. She is an alumna of Women’s Christian College, Stella Maris College and Madras Christian College, Chennai. She lives in India and works for a US-based technology services company.
Bio Info Source: https://anupamaraju.com/about/
Review by Monalisa Joshi
Founder, Director and Chief Editor
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