About the Book

A Naxal renegade elopes with the wife of the protagonist Mahendra Chamar who is supposedly dead for him after a police encounter. Other Naxals kill both. Years later the unmindful killing helps Mahendra to see through the stones, the reality which is opaque. The book goes deep inside the mythical lands where magic is a part of life. Where a nun leaves the church to raise the son of Maoist. Where revenge of a landlord leads to unthinkable scale of killings of innocents., and where a former armed guerilla transcends all barriers to become a 'god'.Meanwhile, within the Red army there is debate on links with the LTTE and the need for sophisticated arms. There is struggle for control over organisation in which guns play a vital role.

About the Author

Born in 1964 in Calcutta, Diptendra Raychauduri is a senior journalist. While reporting on Left politics, he undertook numerous trips to impoverished rural areas to understand why people take up arms. He used most of his vacations to stay in Naxalites infested areas to bring this novel as close to the reality as possible. Such is the power of his expression that while meandering through the various turns of India's rural landscape, the reader gets directly transformed to the Naxal lands

Reviews

“It is like a tale from Panchatantra, unfolding in a series of stories and characters. The protagonist is Mahendra Chamar, whose Naxalism is tempered by his mysticism. His lifetime's search for truth is often dreamlike… Each character is fleshed out, portrayed with sympathy, shown as significant. This is a rare gift.” Vijay Nambisan (DNA, Bombay)

“Real incidents and thinly disguised personalities dot the narrative and at times lend the novel a feel of non-fiction. It is understandable since, as a journalist, the author spent many years chasing the Maoist story. Undoubtedly he has gathered valuable insight into the ground realities, enough to venture into telling their story.”

Ranjita Biswas (The Hindu)

“If Harry Potter had been born a Chamar somewhere in Bihar, turned into a communist and then a Naxalite, had been fired upon by the police and had a chance to describe his life and the society he had lived in, this would have been the book he would have written.” Aditi Phadnis (Business Standard)

Filled with accounts of real-life happenings in some parts of Maoist-affected India, The Naxal Story is a novel of injustice and revenge, cheap blood and costly conspiracies, of truth that has to be sifted from loads of lies.