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Author: Dominique Lapierre

No of Pages : 514

About the Author

Dominique Lapierre is a French Author born in La Rochelle, France, studied and graduated from Lafayette College, Pennsylvania. He spent 14 years as an international reporter with the news magazine Paris Match.His wife Dominique Conchon-Lapierre ( they were married in 1980) is his partner in the City of Joy Foundation (registered in France under the official name of Action pour les enfants des lpreux de Calcutta), which is a purely volunteer-driven association.The couple lives in the south of France. The other books written by Lapierre include ‘Is Paris Burning?’ and ‘Is New York Burning’ They have one daughter, Alexandra, who also is a writer. (from wikipedia)

About the book ‘City of Joy‘

This book was written based on the experiences of the author during frequent stays in Calcutta. The author wrote the story based on three years of extensive research in Calcutta and various areas in Bengal, India. Taking help from personal dairies, correspondence, interviews that were conducted through interpreters in various languages including Hindi, Bengali ,Oriya and Urdu. The author translated them into English and French. The author goes on to add in his note right at the beginning of the book ‘This book though the fruit of extensive research does not pretend to speak for the whole of India readers should not extend to the country as a whole , impressions he gathers here of one small corner of it - a small area of Calcutta called The city of Joy. The book dwells on the lives of men and women and children who have been uprooted from their homes in rural villages of India, by implacable nature and hostile circumstances, and thrown into a city whose capacity for hospitality has been pushed beyond imagination.It is a story about how people learn despite incredibly difficult odds to survive, to share and to love.

The Story

It is basically the story of Stephan Kovalski , a polish Catholic priest who wants to make...