Koushik Banerjea

As far back as the author remembers, his head has usually been in a book. The trickster narratives of Brer Rabbit and Anansi, as well as nightly spelling tests and cod liver oil, spooned in by his Mum, got him through childhood and imbued him with a lifelong love of storytelling, if not necessarily of fish oil. Then as a young man, there was the joy of encountering the laconic humour of writers like Sam Selvon and Clarice Lispector, whose brio taught him how an outsider’s perspective often has the edge in making sense of modern life. More recently his work has appeared in darkmatter101.org and 'Verbal' as well as Writers Resist and minor literatures.

In a Time of Monsters

This excerpt from Banerjea’s debut novel begins with a gang arrest in a neighborhood in south London, but the focus of the chapter is the immigrant woman who reminisces about her happy childhood in pre-partition Bengal. She implores her professor father, her Baba, to allow her older brother, her dada, to take her to the cinema. The wish is granted, and she experiences for the first time the Mukul cinema, “its well-decorated marquee at the entrance and walls pasted with big posters announcing forthcoming features.” Along with other girls chaperoned by older brothers, she and her dada sit in the very front row and watch the giant gorilla carry Ann in his huge hand and disappear into the jungle, as the Mukul cinema is “filled with the shrieks and cries of children.”

Novel Excerpts / Novella Issue Eight

Koushik Banerjea

As far back as the author remembers, his head has usually been in a book. The trickster narratives of Brer Rabbit and Anansi, as well as nightly spelling tests and cod liver oil, spooned in by his Mum, got him through childhood and imbued him with a lifelong love of storytelling, if not necessarily of fish oil. Then as a young man, there was the joy of encountering the laconic humour of writers like Sam Selvon and Clarice Lispector, whose brio taught him how an outsider’s perspective often has the edge in making sense of modern life. More recently his work has appeared in darkmatter101.org and 'Verbal' as well as Writers Resist and minor literatures.

In a Time of Monsters

This excerpt from Banerjea’s debut novel begins with a gang arrest in a neighborhood in south London, but the focus of the chapter is the immigrant woman who reminisces about her happy childhood in pre-partition Bengal. She implores her professor father, her Baba, to allow her older brother, her dada, to take her to the cinema. The wish is granted, and she experiences for the first time the Mukul cinema, “its well-decorated marquee at the entrance and walls pasted with big posters announcing forthcoming features.” Along with other girls chaperoned by older brothers, she and her dada sit in the very front row and watch the giant gorilla carry Ann in his huge hand and disappear into the jungle, as the Mukul cinema is “filled with the shrieks and cries of children.”

Novel Excerpts / Novella Issue Eight

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