Ghosts of Calcutta

If a man is the sum of his misfortunes, as William Faulkner wrote, then maybe a city is the sum of its ghosts – and their unfortunate ends.

Calcutta a dead city. The city which is the most alive in this universe is also the most dead.

The spirits roaming the damp streets of what is now known as Kolkata have much to say, and they phrase it eloquently in Ghosts of Calcutta, via the pen of author Sébastien Ortiz, the nom de plume of Fabrice Etienne, who – as the former French Consul General in Kolkata – knows his subject. He sheds light on the city's ghosts with the meticulous care of a widowed lover. "It is Calcutta who holds my pen," his fictional alter ego says, almost apologetically.