Narcopolis  (English, Hardcover, Jeet Thayil)

Narcopolis is a fictional book on Indian literature by Jeet Thayil. It gives an account of the city of Old Bombay over a period of three decades and the people and their incidents that occurred during that time.

Summary Of The Book

This book gives an amazing account of the shady and latent incidents that are generally overlooked by a common individual. The book gives an account ranging for a period of three decades. The place in which the story unfolds is called Shuklaji Street, in Old Bombay.

The opium place which belongs to a man called Rashid has many mysteries to offer. A lady in her youth is narrated to carry a pipe over a flame. She has a very shabby appearance. The people present in the room seem to grunt with disdain. The rule urges people to familiarize one’s deadliest opponent to opium. Then ghosts seem to prevail in and around the place belonging to different religions like Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. This book also gives a brief overview about an interlude in Mao's China. After that, there is this gossip about Pathar Maar, the stone killer. It is rumoured that Pathar Maar is very dangerous and feeds on the unseen poor masses. The characters introduced in the group are a horrific group of pimps, pushers, poets, gangsters, and eunuchs.

About Jeet Thayil

Jeet Thayil is a very popular Indian poet, novelist, and musician.

Apart from this book, he has authored many other books, some of which are These Errors Are Correct, Apocalypso, and Gemini.

The theme which is seen to be followed in his book is a rare blend of many prevalent emotions. He is often seen to express the plethora of drugs and alcohol, sex and death, which resembles the creations of Keats and Baudelaire. He is often described as a writer influenced more by foreign writers like William S. Burroughs and Roberto Bolano rather than the ones with an Indian tinge in their writings. But one must not be mistaken that despite implementing a combination of hints from various kinds of styles, his writing carries a unique charm which can be easily segregated from the writing style of any other author.

Jeet Thayil was born in Kerala, India. He received almost his entire education away from India. He obtained a Masters in Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence College, which is situated in New York. He has since then received a number of prizes and accolades from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Swiss Arts Council, the British Council, and the Rockefeller Foundation. In addition to his writing skills, he is also very reputed as a performance poet and musician. He has laid his mark even as a songwriter and a guitarist. He has served as a journalist in totally diverse cities like New York, Mumbai, and Bangalore. Thayil got shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012 for writing this novel.