The Calcutta Chromosome - Hardcover

Ghosh, Amitav

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394281934 ISBN 13: 9780394281933

Publisher: Knopf Canada, 1996

Synopsis

A high-tech medical thriller, a scientific quest and a Victorian ghost story - as electrifying as The Hot Zone and as rich in its details as Possession.

About this title

Review:

The Calcutta Chromosome is one of those books that's marketed as a mainstream thriller even though it is an excellent science fiction novel (It won the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award). The main character is a man named Antar, whose job is to monitor a somewhat finicky computer that sorts through mountains of information. When the computer finds something it can't catalog, it brings the item to Antar's attention. A string of these seemingly random anomalies puts Antar on the trail of a man named Murugan, who disappeared in Calcutta in 1995 while searching for the truth behind the discovery of the cure for malaria. This search for Murugan leads, in turn, to the discovery of the Calcutta Chromosome, which can shift bits of personality from one person to another. That's when things really get interesting.

About the Author:

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956. He is the author of two novels: The Shadow Lines and The Circle of Reason, and of the non-fiction work, In An Antique Land. He lives in New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf Canada
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0394281934
• ISBN 13: 9780394281933
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256