Anchor Avik Chanda - HARPERCOLLINS
A firebrand ex-Naxal who seems to have gone missing at a critical juncture. A veteran journalist accompanied by a young and naive sub-editor determined to find the truth. A suave but ruthless politician with a hidden agenda, equally determined to stop the truth from getting out. A gang of hardened criminals ready to do his bidding in cohorts with the police. Helpless villagers who are mere pawns in a bigger game. And a group of anxious editors waiting in the claustrophobic newsroom of The Sentinel for the night to pass and the next day’s ‘anchor’ to unfold in the killing fields of a village on the outskirts of Kolkata. Over the course of an unforgettable, stifling, rain-soaked night, the lives of these characters intertwine, clash and are changed inexorably. In Anchor, Avik Chanda presents a picture of Kolkata in the late 1990s, and serving as its foil, a tiny fictional village, where people risk losing their homes, land – and finally, even their lives.
Born in Calcutta, Avik Chanda graduated from Presidency College followed by a master’s at the Delhi School of Economics. He pursues a career in consulting but has also moonlighted in the past as a freelance journalist, painter and poet, with two published collections to his name. Presently, Avik resides in Hyderabad with his wife, Shikha. Anchor is his first novel.
