Christopher Raja

Christopher Raja migrated to Melbourne from Kolkata in 1986, and now lives and works in Melbourne. His short story ‘After the Wreck’ was adapted for radio and broadcast on ABC Radio National in 2007. His play Drew’s Seizure was performed at Araluen Arts Centre, Alice Springs in 2009. His co-authored play The First Garden played over six nights at the Olive Pink Botanic Garden in September 2011 and was published by Currency Press in 2012. The Burning Elephant was written under a New Work grant awarded by the Literature Board of the Australia Council.

Titles

Fiction

224 pages
Paperback, 19.7 x 13 cm
Published September 2015
ISBN 9781922146922

An escaped elephant enters Govinda’s schoolyard, and frightens everyone. The young boy watches on in horror as the elephant is shot and then cremated. Is this a sign for dark days ahead? In The Burning Elephant, we step into Govinda’s Calcutta, a world which revolves around the magic and menace of Serpent Lane, just beyond the school gates, and spins out into a city and country in crisis, when the Prime Minister is assassinated. This is a story of how the terrors of life can crash into adolescence and how innocence, once lost, can never be regained.

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