Author Amitabha Bagchi returns with his latest novel, Unknown City (HarperCollins), a sequel to his 2007 bestseller Above Average. The book follows Arindam Chatterjee from Above Average, now in his 50s and a novelist and professor, as he reflects on his post-IIT years and the relationships that shaped him—whether with JNU graduate Supriya, who once seemed to define his world; writer Razia, who challenged his internal biases about love and understanding; or Lisa, whose presence in his life was shaped by distance and cultural differences.
Structured in a nonlinear fashion, the book pieces together moments from Chatterjee’s past, capturing his thoughts in an intimate, reflective tone—much like a late-night conversation over a glass of wine. Bagchi portrays Chatterjee as a man forced to confront his past, grappling with his failures and asking himself: What is love? And how did I fail to understand it?
Excerpts from a conversation:
What made you want to return to Arindam Chatterjee from Above Average after so many years?
When I first finished writing Arindam’s story, I had a vague sense that I might revisit it someday, but I had no clear idea of when or why. Returning to Arindam wasn’t deliberate—it just happened naturally.
The book explores multiple relationships in Chatterjee’s life, but his time with Supriya occupies a significant portion of the novel. How does this reflect real-life relationships?
Many people have one formative relationship in their adult life—one that deeply shapes them, teaches valuable lessons, and leaves a lasting imprint, influencing how they navigate future relationships. For Arindam, Supriya is that relationship. While he had a girlfriend before her—Naina—his connection with Supriya becomes more defining, setting the tracks for who he is going to be. It’s like when people say someone is "carrying a lot of baggage"—often, that baggage comes from this one defining relationship. Everything that follows is, in some way, shaped by what he learned—or failed to learn—from that relationship.
Chatterjee struggles to understand the women in his life. Do you think male protagonists in literature face a similar issue?
It’s difficult to generalise, but if I had to, I would say most male protagonists by male authors don't focus on understanding women. They simply interact with them, and often treat women as finished products—as if the male understanding of women is either unimportant or already sufficient, so it doesn’t need much attention.
What makes Unknown City different is that it begins with a male protagonist who knows he doesn’t understand women. Instead of asking, ‘How do women think?’ Arindam revisits past moments and asks himself: ‘What did I miss? What did I misunderstand?’ It’s not about achieving a definitive answer but rather grappling with the gaps in his perception.
The novel feels like a conversation—something you’d have late at night with your friends, reflecting on life. Was that a conscious stylistic choice and how did you develop Arindam’s voice to achieve that effect?
I wrote in a style that naturally mirrored the way friends tell stories to each other, about their day, about someone they knew or something that happened. In Unknown City, there’s more introspection on Arindam’s part. It has a conversational tone, but I wouldn’t say Arindam is directly telling these stories to someone, but as a writer, I felt like addressing my reader very directly. Arindam takes on a tone that suggests he’s speaking to someone, but ultimately, the person he’s addressing is himself. That said, the question of who Arindam is speaking to remains somewhat open-ended. I didn’t overthink it when developing his voice—it just evolved naturally.
The book is as much about its places—Delhi, New York, Baltimore, Mumbai—as it is about its people. How did geography shape the narrative?
As a writer, creating narratives around a place has always been important to me. My previous novels had strong geographical anchors—This Place (2013) is set in Baltimore, and Half the Night is Gone (2018) is set in Old Delhi. Unknown City is the first where the setting isn’t tightly bound to one location. Geography, the built environment, and physical spaces all absorb the emotional weight of our lives and reflect it back in a heightened way. As writers—or artists of any kind—we’re constantly searching for surfaces that can reflect the emotional core of our work. For me, cities and architecture serve as powerful reflective surfaces, and geography holds a distinct emotional value in storytelling.
The novel challenges the idea of coming-of-age as a single moment. Should literature move away from such neat resolutions?
The coming-of-age novel holds significance, especially for writers, since many first novels stem from the writer’s own coming of age. It’s the moment they synthesise their childhood and early youth, using those experiences to transform themselves into a writer. That said, simply labelling a book a 'coming-of-age novel' isn’t enough. People come of age in countless ways, and literature should reflect that complexity. It’s more meaningful to explore those variations; just calling something a coming-of-age story, posting about it on Instagram, and moving on, that doesn’t do much for the reader.
What will readers take away from Unknown City that they might not have got from Above Average?
The simplest takeaway is the importance of being self-critical and seeing the other’s point of view. This isn’t just about men and women—that’s just one of the many divides we live within. There’s class, caste, race, gender, sexuality, and more. People think differently, and often, understanding the other feels difficult. But it isn’t impossible. It is possible to understand other people. The first step, however, is to begin with self-criticism.