Published in 1988, The Shadow Lines is a novel by award-winning Indian writer Amitav Ghosh. It recounts the story of the narrator's coming of age in Calcutta and the sweeping impact of political violence on his life.
The novel is told from a single point of view, but does not follow a straightforward chronology. Instead, the narrator captures the looseness of memories, leaping back and forth through time, following his recollections as they come to him. In doing so, he paints a vivid picture of his family and the events of his times, including the Swadeshi movement, the bombing of London in WWII, the Partition of India, and the communal riots of 1963-64 in Dhaka and Calcutta. He pays...
