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Sunday, June 05, 2022

"Against the impossible dimensions of this city, the 12 small lives flicker bravely..."

A new review of City of Incident

"Against the impossible dimensions of this city, the 12 small lives flicker bravely under the razor-gaze of the author’s lens. It begins with a moment, an image, a mood that flowers into a story. One life is linked to another, seeds are sown in an early chapter that will sprout in a later one. Sometimes it is a vague intersection, the sort of thing that is natural in a thrumming metropolis, sometimes a deep connection is forged. But mostly each is returned to their own life – who can refuse to live it?! – by the metronome of their own circumstances.

Riot was urgent and political; City is restrained and almost entirely focused on the individual. We are to know no names; identities are linked mostly to class. As in Greek tragedy, the moments of greatest drama are all conducted off-stage and we get to hear of it only through the chance words of others. In my view, it is the economy of this stylistic choice that makes City so compelling."

- Devapriya Roy writes in The Indian Express

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