Take a leisurely walk, enjoy the sights, sounds and flavours of nostalgia

Sumana Roy's book celebrates the creativity of provincials, who became inventive because of deprivation. They take the cards that life has dealt them and start playing

Provincials: Postcards from the Peripheries

Author: Sumana Roy

Publisher: Aleph Book Company

Pages: 320

Price: Rs 899

Is the word “provincial” a slur, an identity, or merely the opposite of “cosmopolitan”? As a geographical category, does it seem fixed like a rock or fluid like a river? As a literary sensibility, is it self-assured or lacking in ambition? Sumana Roy’s new book Provincials: Postcards from the Peripheries invites us to join her on a long and leisurely walk with these questions that she ventures to explore rather than answer.

The author’s family moved to Siliguri in the Himalayan foothills from the