With her keen power of observation, Nabaneeta Dev Sen (‘Sahitya Akademi Awards’, 1999, 2019) depicts in this novel with touching sensitivity the intersection of the immigrants’ lives in New York as they search for their individual ‘addresses’. The notion of address gradually expands beyond the physical to embrace ‘refuge’ from racial disparity in case of Gloria and the ‘ideal of love’ in case of Benjamin and Jhilli, a young woman from Kolkata who came to New York.
Nabaneeta Dev Sen (13 January 1938 – 7 November 2019) was an Indian writer and academic. After studying arts and comparative literature, she moved to US where she studied further. She returned to India and taught at several universities and institutes as well as served on various positions in literary institutes. She published more than 80 books in Bengali: poetry, novels, short stories, plays, literary criticism, personal essays, travelogues, humour writing, translations and children's literature. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2000 and the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1999.
Dr. Chhanda Chattopadhyay Bewtra is Emerita Professor at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska. Her previous translations include novels by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay and Sirshendu Mukhopadhyay.