Kunal Basu releases Derangements by Rajorshi Chakraborti (left). Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

August 6 marked 63 years since the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. The day saw the launch of Shei Bedonar Smriti, the Bengali translation of La Douleur (War: A Memoir) by author Marguerite Duras at Oxford Bookstore. Duras had written the screenplay of Hiroshima Mon Amour, one of the most influential films of all time.

Shei Bedonar Smriti was released by the Oxford Bookstore and Purple Peacock Books and Arts in association with the embassy of France in India, Alliance Française du Bengale. Parts of Hiroshima Mon Amour were screened at the launch. Excerpts from Shei Bedonar Smriti and La Douleur were read out in Bengali and French by Jharna Bose, who translated the work, and Christian Chatton, the director of Alliance Française.

La Douleur is a semi-autobiographical work that is drawn from Duras’ diaries written during the Second World War. It recounts her experiences during Nazi occupation of France and talks about sharing the guilt of Holocaust. It evoked memories of Hiroshima Mon Amour, which was the story of a married French actress, who, while shooting an international movie about peace in Hiroshima, had a one-night stand with a married Japanese architect. He reminds her of her first love, a German soldier who fought in World War II. In Hiroshima Mon Amour, the lead character of the film, Elle asks: “They make advertisements for soap. Why not for peace?” The question still holds.

I committed a murder every year,” reads Rajorshi Chakraborti from his second novel Derangements, launched by author Kunal Basu at Oxford Bookstore on August 9. A line that’s enough to get readers hooked.

Described by Basu as a book “about mystery and many revelations”, Derangements, though is the work of a mind that is completely disciplined. “I wanted to see if I could convincingly create a character whose response to everything in life will be ‘bring it on’,” said Chakraborti, a teacher of creative writing.

“I wanted to create a mystery, being a fan of mystery writing. And I wanted to raise questions about elements in the writer’s life and how they enter fiction. Also how people around the author would react to his presentation of the events.”

In Derangements, Chakraborti presents an author, Raj Chakraborti, writing a novel within the novel, and finally the two stories overlap.