How a trip to Guyana became a short-listed novel

by Samantha Leese

What does it mean to "really travel" in a world where so much is connected and so little seems new?

One answer may be to spend a year in a place that everybody else seems to have forgotten. And, from there, to write a novel so adventurous and beautiful that it reminds us how much of the earth there is left to see.

Former cricket writer Rahul Bhattacharya does just that. The result of his year-long stint in Guyana was "The Sly Company of People Who Care" -- short-listed for this year's Man Asian Literary Prize.

The debut novel follows the picaresque travels of a young Indian journalist who goes to Guyana to escape the "deadness of his life."

Of mixed Bengali and Gujarati descent, Bhattacharya is no stranger to relocations. The 32-year-old author compares his childhood to that of an army cantonment kid.

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