RAILSONG
A breathtaking novel about a woman forging a life for herself on the railways, Railsong is the heartwarming story of an individual coming of age amid the social and political upheavals of twentieth-century India.
In a newly independent India charged with national vigour, Charu, the motherless daughter of a railway worker, pines for freedom from the shackles of her impoverishment and meagre prospects. As diesel engines replace steam and the calamitous churn of drought, famine, and a great strike engulfs her town, Charu dares to imagine a different future for herself. She boards a train and flees westwards,
A breathtaking novel about a woman forging a life for herself on the railways, Railsong is the heartwarming story of an individual coming of age amid the social and political upheavals of twentieth-century India.
In a newly independent India charged with national vigour, Charu, the motherless daughter of a railway worker, pines for freedom from the shackles of her impoverishment and meagre prospects. As diesel engines replace steam and the calamitous churn of drought, famine, and a great strike engulfs her town, Charu dares to imagine a different future for herself. She boards a train and flees westwards, leaving behind the oppressive domesticity of her childhood for the alluring modernity, and apparent opportunities, of Bombay.
Unfazed by the everyday discriminations around her she becomes an unlikely hero: a railway woman and census enumerator who keeps her heart open—sometimes guilelessly—to her nation’s vast possibility. Sweeping, elegiac, and at times wonderfully comic, Railsong is a powerful portrait of grit, optimism, and the force of character that enables one remarkable woman to live on her own terms in a country full of contradictions.
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Paperback
- February 2026
- 416 Pages
- 9781639736225
Buy the Book
$29.99
About Rahul Bhattacharya
Rahul Bhattacharya is a writer, journalist, and editor. His first novel, The Sly Company of People Who Care, won the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Pundits from Pakistan, his first book, was a Wisden Cricketer top ten cricket book of all time. He was born in Bombay and lives in Delhi with his wife and two daughters.
Praise
“Magnificent . . . I would follow Miss Chitol to the ends of the earth.” —Kamila Shamsie
“Profoundly tender [and] vigorously alive to the currents of national change.” —Megha Majumdar
“Bhattacharya . . . serves up an illuminating tale about a woman fighting for her agency in India . . . Through Charu’s experiences, Bhattacharya provides a wide-angle view of India’s inequality and patriarchal gender roles, all while depicting in intimate detail how his protagonist struggles to live on her own terms.” —Publishers Weekly
“[A] sprawling tale, told with flair and heart.” —California Review of Books
“The novel’s witty, slightly Dickensian tone offers both humor and poignancy. This bildungsroman concerning one woman’s quest to define her identity also brings India into sharp focus.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Tracing Charu’s story against tidal forces of history is brilliant, and her perception of feminism’s impact is moving.” —Booklist
“Does anyone write better prose than Rahul Bhattacharya? Every word in this gorgeous, darting novel is a surprise. Bhattacharya has created an epic out of a single life.” —Karan Mahajan, author of National Book Award Finalist The Association of Small Bombs