Let’s ExploreHalf the Night is Gone

  • Author: Amitabha Bagchi
Half the Night is Gone
Half the Night is Gone

A dazzling novel that explores the legacies that fathers bequeath their sons

Fatherhood and familial inheritances ring deep in Amitabha Bagchi's fourth novel Half the Night is Gone. Lala Motichand, a wealthy Delhi-based merchant is the lord of his palatial haveli in early 20th century India, served by a small army of servants, particularly Mange Ram, a former wrestler and his personal servant. Motichand's relationship with his three sons is strained. He expects his oldest son and heir, the England-educated Dinanath, to take over the mantle of his business. He has a tenuous hold on the spiritually inclined Diwanchand. Meanwhile he keeps a close watch on his third son, the illegitimate Makhan Lal, a schoolteacher wrapped up in the revolutionary fervour of Marx and Bhagat Singh.

Motichand and his scions are all characters, however, in the pages of ageing Hindi novelist Vishwanath. Dealing with the recent death of his own son, Vishwanath's letters provide a sharp contrast to the historical fiction penned by him. The celebrated writer uses his fiction to navigate the unbroken threads binding fathers and sons through a nostalgic reconstruction of India's feudal past.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORAmitabha Bagchi

Amitabha Bagchi was born in 1974 in Delhi. He is the author of three novels. The first, Above Average, was a bestseller. His second novel, The Householder, was published to critical acclaim and the third, This Place, was shortlisted for the Raymond Crossword Book Award 2014. He picked up the notion that telling stories was something worth doing when his father told stories at the dining table - of encounters with amusing or important people, or interesting things he had come across in his travels. "His tellings were always laced with a kind delight in the world."

Bagchi is also a computer science professor in New Delhi. His day job throws up complex and engaging problems that he thinks is very useful to have when you need to think away from a writing project, which is often. The writing, in turn, acts as an escape route that allows him to put knotty research problems on the backburner. A colleague once asked him: "One of these is a hobby, the Computer Science or the writing. Which one?" So I told him, honestly, that I didn't know. They are both hobbies, and they are both my job. Bagchi lives in Delhi.

Amitabha Bagchi

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The Prize Winnersover the years

The JCB Prize for Literature was first awarded in 2018, since then the Prize has been awarded to 6 books.

Perumal Murugan

Perumal Murugan

Perumal Murugan is an Indian author, scholar, and literary chronicler who writes in Tamil. He has written twelve novels, six collections of short stories, six anthologies of poetry, and many non-fiction books. Ten of his novels have been translated into English: Seasons of the Palm, which was shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize in 2005, Current Show, One Part Woman, A Lonely Harvest, Trail by Silence, Poonachi or the Story of a Goat, Resolve, Estuary, Rising Heat, and Pyre. He was a professor of Tamil at the Government Arts College in Salem Attur and Namakkal.

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Khalid Jawed

Khalid Jawed

Khalid Jawed is one of the leading Urdu novelists today. He is the author of fifteen works of fiction and non-fiction and is a recipient of the Katha Award, the Upendranath Ashk Award, and the UP Urdu Academy Award. He is a professor at Jamia Millia Islamia University.

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M. Mukundan

M. Mukundan

M. Mukundan was born and brought up in Mahe. He rose to critical acclaim and popularity with Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerangalil (1974). His stories and novels have been widely translated into various Indian languages, English and French. He has been awarded Ezhuthachan Puraskaram, the highest literary honour given by the Government of Kerala, the Crossword Book Award twice, first in 1999 for On the Banks of the Mayyazhi and again in 2006 for Kesavan’s Lamentations, and the Sahitya Akademi award and N.V. Puraskaram for Daivathinte Vikrithikal (God’s Mischief). His other major works include Kesavante Vilapangal (2009) and Prasavam (2008). He was presented with the insignia of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 1998. He also served as the president of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi from 2006 to 2010. Four of his books have been adapted into award-winning films. Delhi Gathakal (2011), translated as Delhi: A Soliloquy, is based on his experiences of living and working in Delhi for forty years as a Cultural Attaché at the French embassy. In 2004, he retired from that position and returned to Mahe, his hometown.

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S. Hareesh

S. Hareesh

S. Hareesh is the author of three short-story collections: Adam, which received the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award, Rasavidyayude Charithram, and Appan. He is also a recipient of the Geetha Hiranyan Endowment, the Thomas Mundassery Prize, and the V.P. Sivakumar Memorial Prize. Hareesh is also the author of two screenplays - for the film Aedan, which received the Kerala State Award for best screenplay in 2017, and for the 2019 film Jallikattu, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and won a silver peacock at the International Film Festival of India. Hareesh works in the revenue department, and hails from Neendoor in Kottayam district, Kerala.

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Madhuri Vijay

Madhuri Vijay

Madhuri Vijay was born and raised in Bengaluru and now lives in Hawaii where she teaches children at a school is a schoolteacher. "A fortunate benefit of teaching young children,” she says "is that they neither know nor care about how many words you managed to write that day or whether you’ve hit upon the perfect metaphor - working with them is a refreshing and humbling reminder to keep one’s work in proper perspective.” She’s a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. Her writing has appeared in Best American Non-Required Reading, Narrative Magazine and Salon, among other publications. In 2010, she wrote a short story about a mother and a daughter and a Kashmiri man. "It was a maudlin story-abysmal, really-but I grew interested in writing a novel about Kashmir.” The Far Field is her first book.

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