Bloomsbury Publishing has announced the release of Railsong, the much-awaited new novel by acclaimed author Rahul Bhattacharya, whose debut The Sly Company of People Who Care won both the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Hindu Literary Prize, besides being shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Commonwealth Book Prize.

Sweeping in scope, lyrical in rhythm, and alive with wry humour, Railsong traces the journey of Charu, a railway worker’s daughter, as she forges her own path amid the social and political upheavals of 20th-century India. Set against the clang and whistle of a changing nation, the novel becomes both a portrait of a woman in search of freedom and a mirror to the nation’s restless transformation.

To mark the launch, Bloomsbury has unveiled two striking covers — each capturing a different mood of the story. The yellow edition evokes stillness and introspection, while the blue edition bursts with vitality and motion — together reflecting the dual rhythm of Bhattacharya’s narrative style.

“Railsong is a story in motion — inward and outward at once, tracing how one woman’s rebellion against confinement echoes the larger music of a country in flux,” the author said.

In Railsong, Bhattacharya returns to the terrain he explores best — the intersections of the personal and the political, the intimate and the epic. As Charu flees her small-town life and travels west to Bombay, her journey unfolds against the background of droughts, strikes, and the approach of the Emergency. Through loss, love, and survival, she becomes the embodiment of resilience — a “railway woman” who keeps her heart open even as the world hardens around her.

Bhattacharya, who was born in Bombay and now lives in Delhi, is also the author of Pundits from Pakistan, a beloved cricket travelogue that won the Crossword Popular Book Award and was named one of Wisden Cricketer’s top ten cricket books of all time.

Railsong is now available in bookstores and online.