Description
Set in 1960s Bengal, this novel follows Alu, an orphan taken in by his uncle Balaram, whose rigid belief in phrenology turns ordinary life into a battleground between “reason” and superstition. As suspicion hardens into violence and Alu is branded a threat after an explosion, he is driven to flee—carrying the fallout of his uncle’s certainty into lives shaped by fear, judgment, and the cost of being misunderstood. Across borders into northern Africa, Alu confronts a harsher moral landscape where survival demands compromise and power is negotiated in places far removed from any classroom. Blending social realism with a restless, quest-like momentum, the story interrogates scientific arrogance, social corruption, and displacement, asking how easily logic can curdle into cruelty when it is wielded without humility.
Available Editions
paperback
Orient Blackswan
Published Jan 1, 2000
438 pages
ISBN: 9788175300392
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Details
First Published
1986
Language
eng
Content Warnings
Content and trigger warnings for The Circle of Reason by Amitav Ghosh.