Hometowns: A Book Reading by Dr. Indranil Chakravarty
Thursday, November 5, 2026 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM EST
Horizon Hall, #6325
Global South Research Hub presents the first public reading of
Hometowns
A book about a film about a man named Suresh Biswas
About the book:
Born in a Bengal village in 1861, Suresh Biswas left India at seventeen and never returned. He stowed away on a ship from Calcutta to London, tamed lions and tigers in the circuses of Europe and the Americas, and led Brazilian battalions as an army captain in two wars. Six letters to his uncle are nearly all that survive of him. Hometowns reconstructs his life through biography, travelogue, essay, and memoir. Its frame story follows a screenwriter in the Mumbai film industry, where the producer wants a nationalist hero and the screenwriter sees a citizen of the world. Dr. Chakravarty will read from the book and take questions on reconstructing a life from scant evidence.
About the speaker:
Dr. Indranil Chakravarty is a writer, filmmaker, and academic based in India whose work traces cultural exchange between India and Latin America. He taught film history at India’s premier film institutes for more than two decades. His books include The Tree Within: Octavio Paz’s Years in India (Penguin, 2025), The New Latin American Cinema, and Redescubriendo a Tagore.
