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Summer of Then

Summer of Then

A Novel

Rupleena Bose
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A young English literature teacher negotiates between her writing and her livelihood, her morality and her heart, her selfhood and her family’s history. She moves between cities, seasons and two men: Nikhil and Zafar—their lives getting entangled across a decade of restlessness and upheavals, their paths defined by questions of identity, desire and betrayals.

Summer of Then is a debut novel that relishes the interiority of women, especially the often-unsettling intimacies of relationships—sexual, romantic and platonic—against the trauma of sexual assault and harassment. Set across Calcutta, Delhi, Mumbai and Edinburgh, Scotland, this coming-of-age novel crosses paths with the India of the 2010s, exploring the trickle-down effect of politics on the academia and college life in Indian metropolitan cities, leading us just to the point of the incipient anxieties and beginnings of the next decade.

In the vein of Sally Rooney’s Normal People and Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Summer of Then employs a sparse yet deeply compelling voice and introspective, observational commentary to evoke precise emotional and social detail.

Imprint: Vintage Books

Published: May/2024

ISBN: 9780143465706

Length : 360 Pages

MRP : ₹699.00

Summer of Then

A Novel

Rupleena Bose

A young English literature teacher negotiates between her writing and her livelihood, her morality and her heart, her selfhood and her family’s history. She moves between cities, seasons and two men: Nikhil and Zafar—their lives getting entangled across a decade of restlessness and upheavals, their paths defined by questions of identity, desire and betrayals.

Summer of Then is a debut novel that relishes the interiority of women, especially the often-unsettling intimacies of relationships—sexual, romantic and platonic—against the trauma of sexual assault and harassment. Set across Calcutta, Delhi, Mumbai and Edinburgh, Scotland, this coming-of-age novel crosses paths with the India of the 2010s, exploring the trickle-down effect of politics on the academia and college life in Indian metropolitan cities, leading us just to the point of the incipient anxieties and beginnings of the next decade.

In the vein of Sally Rooney’s Normal People and Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Summer of Then employs a sparse yet deeply compelling voice and introspective, observational commentary to evoke precise emotional and social detail.

Buying Options
Paperback / Hardback

Rupleena Bose

Rupleena Bose works as an associate professor at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi. Her PhD is on urban music from nineties Calcutta. She has written several screenplays and a non-fiction film titled You Don’t Belong, which has won a National Film Award. She also writes on cinema and culture for The Hindu, BLink, Firstpost, the Economic and Political Weekly, Open, ThePrint and others.


She divides her life and livelihood between Aldona, Goa, and New Delhi with her family and her cats. Summer of Then is her debut novel.
She has been a Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship Holder (2012) at the University of Edinburgh for creative writing. She is also an occasional actor and has co-written a non fiction book on the history of film festivals titled In the Life of a Film Festival (HarperCollins, 2018).

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