How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Rahul Bhattacharya's website.
Railsong. The word is, of course, a neologism. Isn’t it a beautiful one? I feel unabashed in praising it because I didn’t coin it. My literary agent did. I had the phrase “song of the rails” in the novel, and she turned that into this title. It is not exactly an “about” title, yet to my mind, it evokes so much of the novel’s spirit. The railroads that run like a song through the soul of India, braiding the staggering diversity of its people and landscapes. The song that runs through the life of Charulata Chitol, my railway worker protagonist, whose tragedies and triumphs we follow over three decades. I did, in fact, consider naming the novel after her, but...[read on]
Q&A with Rahul Bhattacharya.
--Marshal Zeringue
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