In her anthology of short fiction, Dr. Samanta offers a powerful and moving insight into a vibrant, culturally rich and diverse city of millions in eastern India, and its peoples’ lives. She draws on years of her own life spent in Kolkata, and on later academic research, The stories explore themes such as religious differences, loneliness, loss, discrimination by class and even skin shade, but also strength and resilience. Centrally, in the richly imagined world she creates, Samanta never loses sight of the ever-present possibility of grace, which she understands as kindness, which can emerge in unexpected ways despite our struggles, and our common human predicament.

About the author

Dr. Suchitra Samanta, a retired Collegiate Associate Professor Emerita in the Department of Sociology, Virginia Tech, holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Virginia. She has received national grants for her doctoral and post-doctoral research in Kolkata on the Hindu goddess Kali, and the prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for work related to the Hindu guru. She has received numerous awards at department, college and university levels for her teaching, and promoting awareness on global issues as well as diversity in the U.S. She has published an anthology of her translations from Bengali literature, Hauntings. A Darksome Dozen. Stories by Bangla’s Master Storytellers (New Delhi, Katha, 2000), and a scholarly book, Kali in Bengali Lives. Narratives of Religious Experience (Lexington Books, 2021). Her numerous articles on Hindu belief, and on her later research on women and education have been published in reputed journals. She continues to publish her poetry.

Inspiration for Writing Grace. Stories of Kolkata and is people

Samanta writes about a city she loves, one which has seen four generations of her own family’s history, and about the people she has known. Her stories are a tribute, both to Kolkata, and to its people—their courage and compassion, often in the light of great poverty and hardship, loneliness and loss—hence the title of the book, Grace.

Primary Message for Readers

Samanta encourages readers to explore cultural differences—the many deities that weave through her characters’ lives, for example—the festivals, the foods, the customs. However, and centrally, she hopes that readers will take from the stories our common humanity, our capacity for compassion, our strength, what binds us across difference.

About the Book

Grace. Stories of Kolkata and its people is available for purchase at Amazon.com and at Barnes and Noble

Author Contact Information

Dr. Suchitra Samanta can be contacted via email at ssamanta@vt.edu

Global Book Network - Suchitra Samanta, author of Grace: Stories of Kolkata and its people

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