About the Book: Herbert
May 1992. In Russia, Boris Yeltsin is showing millions of communists the spectre
of capitalism.Yugoslavia is disintegrating. United Germany is confused about
whom to include in its Olympic team—East? Or West? Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Bulgaria, Romania, Albania—communism is collapsing everywhere. And in a corner
of old Calcutta, Herbert Sarkar, sole proprietor of a company that delivers
messages from the dead, decides to give up the ghost. Decides to give up his
aunt and uncle, his friends and foes, his fondness for kites, his aching heart
that broke for his lady doctor, his top terrace from where he stared up at the
sky, his Ulster overcoat