{"product_id":"railsong-9781526691729","title":"Railsong : A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Magnificent' KAMILA SHAMSIE\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Majestic yet profoundly tender' MEGHA MAJUMDAR\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA breathtaking novel about a woman forging a life for herself on the railways, Railsong is the story of an individual coming of age amid the social and political upheavals of twentieth-century India.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnfazed 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor: Rahul Bhattacharya\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ch4\u003eModern \u0026amp; contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Sagas, Historical fiction, Trains \u0026amp; railways: general interest\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003ch5\u003ePublished on 12 Feb 2026 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.\u003c\/h5\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHardback\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Rahul Bhattacharya","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57320512946554,"sku":"9781526691729","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0373\/4125\/files\/9781526691729.jpg?v=1790655849","url":"https:\/\/belfastbooks.co.uk\/products\/railsong-9781526691729","provider":"Belfast Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}