Recorded on Wednesday, November 17, 2021 at 1:30 p.m.
Miami author Mamta Chaudhry will discuss her debut novel, praised as “elegantly wrought” by The New York Times Book Review and “a heart-wrenching love letter to Paris” by Publishers Weekly. It is a profoundly moving story of enduring love, unfathomable loss, and a quest that leads back to the dark days when Nazis occupied the City of Light.
Haunting Paris, published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, has been praised as “elegantly wrought” by The New York Times Book Review and “a heart-wrenching love letter to Paris” by Publishers Weekly. Marilynne Robinson called “this fine first novel . . . a small parable, pondering the nature of civilization itself,” and Russell Banks described it as “powerful and moving . . . with a heartbreaking, profoundly adult love story at its center.” Haunting Paris deals with the dark shadows underpinning the City of Light during the Nazi occupation of Paris.
As the city prepares to celebrate the bicentennial of the French Revolution, Sylvie discovers a mysterious letter among her late lover Julien’s possessions, launching her into a decades-old search for a child who vanished in the turbulence of the Second World War. She is unaware that she is watched over by Julien’s ghost, his love for her powerful enough to draw him back to this world, though doomed now to remain a silent observer. A timeless story of love and loss, Haunting Parismatches emotional intensity with lyrical storytelling to explore grief, family secrets, and the undeniable power of memory.
Mamta Chaudhry was born and brought up in Calcutta; she came to Florida for graduate studies and now lives with her husband in Coral Gables, Florida. They spend part of each year in India and in France. Much of her professional career was in television and classical radio at stations in Calcutta, Gainesville, Dallas, and Miami. Her early fiction, poetry, and feature articles have been published in newspapers and magazines in the United States and in India.
Florida Voices in generously supported by the Fred J. Brotherton Endowment for Literature, established at The Four Arts by the Fred J. Brotherton Charitable Foundation. Fred Brotherton, who died in 2003, was for many years a Benefactor of The Four Arts and a strong supporter of its programs. Florida Voices, featuring the state that was Mr. Brotherton’s winter home, serves as a continuing memorial to this much-respected member of The Four Arts.