Komal Gandhar Chakravarty, a PhD student at the Université de Montréal's Faculty of Theology and Religious Sciences, has penned a new book called Kolkata Dreams (8th House Publishing). Based on Chakravarty's recent travels, Kolkata Dreams is an exploration of India through the eyes of an Indo-North American.
The book examines what it means to be a Westerner in a country at the brink of tradition and modernity. Yusef Komunyakaa, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, described the book as, “robust, deceptive simplicity and a metaphorical diaspora of the spirit.”
A Montreal native, Chakravarty is a poet, singer-songwriter, scholar and visual artist. His poems have been published internationally and several have been translated into Bengali, his ancestral mother tongue. Kolkata Dreams is his first full-length work of poetry. In his music group, Far From Shore (FFS), Chakravarty is the vocalist, lyricist and rhythm guitarist.
Gandhar completed an MA in theological studies at Concordia University in 2007. He is currently working on a volume of poetry entitled Maple Vedas.
On the Web:
About Kolkata Dreams
About the Faculty of Theology and Religious Sciences
