Château Rouge: ‘A true romance’ Clare Carlisle

‘One of our most entertaining writers’ Deborah Levy

I was beginning to feel it would be best not to settle down in areas recognisably Parisian, because places recognisably themselves tend to be fictitious.

A writer is invited to Paris and finds himself living in an area that bears little resemblance to his idea of the city. With the passing of time, his disquiet translates into a way of seeking and experiencing a truer, more unlikely Paris.

Château Rouge takes up residence in that area before floating freely through the city. It takes its time, exploring tangents, diversions, side-streets, creeping into new spaces and remote angles, to open up fresh ground and appraise the city, the experience of travel, otherness - and the novel itself - anew.

‘Paris provides the perfect setting for this beautiful, quietly experimental novel about a man floating through a city he struggles to find his place in’ New Statesman

‘Chaudhuri is a master of mundane, hallucinatory moments, calling to mind Rachel Cusk or W. G. Sebald’ Hua Hsu, New Yorker

‘Chaudhuri’s minutely observed Paris comes to life because it is real, not romanticised. In so many ways, his perceptions are a lesson in how to see a place as it is, rather than as you want it
to be’ Herald