Captivating, fast-paced and dystopian – Tathagata Bhattacharya’s epic debut fantasy fiction General Firebrand and His Red Atlas (buy this book) weaves an intricate web of reality and mercurial fancy, eliciting a response of yearning and awe for its cornucopia of frenetic characters.
Published by Seagull Books and displaying a breathtaking cover designed by the effervescent Sunandini Banerjee, readers who have already experienced the independent publisher’s artistic panache and literary verve feverishly understand the world they are flying off to. For a first timer, only looking at the cover is enough to send one in a tizzy and once you get a hold of the book, it is impossible to put it down!
One can hardly wait to enter Tathagatha’s strange world of fiery revolutionaries accompanied by their fantastical allies in resistance against legions of despotic fascists
The novel opens up with what one might assume a run-of-the-mill acknowledgements page, an assumption unpredictably, and thankfully, nullified. The diction is both conversational and direct with the author summoning the reader to his thought-provoking caverns of intellect; he writes:
“Some words are like guerrillas, they are always going to escape. They will go here and there. You cannot gauge their trajectory of travel, and they will always return fire.”
“Words are crazy – they are cruel, they are unpredictable. In my short life, I have known many such words. These words move me. Words of safety never interested me. But words are also forever. Manuscripts don’t burn, no matter how much fuel you put into the fire. Even words forged in fear today can become the words of someone’s courage tomorrow.”
Reading these lines, explosive and powerful, one can hardly wait to enter Tathagatha’s strange world of fiery revolutionaries accompanied by their fantastical allies in resistance against legions of despotic fascists. A surreal, supra-reality, provocatively subversive by design; the story titillates the reader and ushers one into its intense political landscape of resistance vis-à-vis authoritarianism. The language, intentionally jagged and ‘guerrilla’-like, bolsters the dystopian world’s belligerent climate. And, the author’s conversational anecdotes and asides within the story create a sense of proprietorship and active literary engagement for the readers.
According to the novel synopsis: “In a world on the brink of totalitarian rule, one man rises from the shadows to ignite a revolution and becomes the unlikely leader of a war of resistance that will shake the very foundations of power. General Firebrand, an unsocial and recovered alcoholic, considered a pariah by society, rises up against the country’s fascist regime. In this guerrilla war, Firebrand garners support from the unlikeliest allies. Beasts and birds of the jungle join the struggle. Spirits of historical figures from past wars and fictional characters with supernatural abilities lend their strength to the cause. As a devastating secret is revealed that moves Firebrand to the core, the battle for liberation takes on new dimensions, exposing the fragility of rationality and the weight of historical wrongs committed in the name of a supposedly humane ideology.”
A must-read work of fiction, General Firebrand and His Red Atlas is a testament that hope is resistance, it is veracity and above all – it is resilience! Hope, indeed, springs eternal or as one of the characters in the novel says:
“Nothing that lasts comes without pain., without loss, without insecurity, without fear, without brashness, without emotions, without turmoil, without courage, without madness.”