Kankana Basu's forthcoming blockbustr

KANKANA BASU

‘A first-time author with a punctured ego, I wrote a stinker to the literary critic. The gentleman calmly said that he saw the glimmerings of a promising book in me, but it was definitely not Vinegar Sunday. Almost by autosuggestion, I wrote Cappuccino Dusk’

Kankana Basu’s Cappuccino Dusk, which was long-listed for the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize (for unpublished manuscripts), will be published in September. The novel is about four siblings, Basu says, and “their eccentric friends and relatives, and the hopes and ideals of youngsters who live in a metropolis, and about the death of their ideals”. The thrust of the novel is on the shifting mesh of relationships but coffee and conversation play a significant role. Basu says her decision to write this novel was fuelled by the first review her debut book — a short story collection titled Vinegar Sunday — received: it left her shattered.