Atchafalaya Darling

Atchafalaya Darling, by Shome Dasgupta

In Shome Dasgupta's latest collection, the dream-like world of South Louisiana shimmers through one of its most original voices. Atchafalaya Darling contains local music scenes, crumbling homes, and creature comforts amid the convergence of wild hopes and rural spaces. Each story navigates the nature of memory, lost or found, sprinkled like spice into the red of the crawfish. While this collection often portrays immense grief—whether from hurricane winds or splintered dreams—​each character clings to a love for place and the people who make it home. Atchafalaya Darling is an homage to Cajun culture, providing ten glimpses into this region like a series of faded Polaroid pictures held under the sun.

Shome Dasgupta is the author of The Seagull and The Urn (HarperCollins India), Cirrus Stratus (Spuyten Duyvil), Tentacles Numbing (Thirty West Publishing House), The Muu-Antiques (Malarkey Books), Histories Of Memories (Belle Point Press), Anklet And Other Stories (Golden Antelope Press), Pretend I Am Someone You Like (Livingston Press), Spectacles (Word West Press), Mute (Tolsun Books), i am here And You Are Gone which won the 2010 OW Press Contest, and a poetry collection, Iron Oxide (Assure Press).

His fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction have appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, American Book Review, New Orleans Review, Arkansas Review, New Delta Review, Necessary Fiction, Louisiana Literature, Jabberwock Review, Parentheses Journal, Magma Poetry, and elsewhere. His work has been anthologized in Best Small Fictions 2019 (Sonder Press), Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press), Best Small Fictions 2023 (Alternating Current Press), The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing (&Now Books), and Poetic Voices Without Borders 2 (Gival Press). He lives in Lafayette, LA, and can be found online at shomedome.com and @laughingyeti.

Praise for Atchafalaya Darling:

“There’s so much tenderness in these stories, all wrapped in vibrantly bubbling scenes and conversations. Dasgupta cares about all these characters and it shows all over the pages and pulls a reader in.”

—Aimee Bender, author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and The Butterfly Lampshade

Praise for Histories of Memories:

“In the vulnerable, gorgeously written, and brilliantly illustrated Histories of Memories, Shome Dasgupta offers the reader an unflinching account of love and loss, failure and redemption, pleasure and pain. Dasgupta layers locations—Kolkata, Edmonton, Munich—with soundtracks—Dr. Dolittle, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Magnolia—and family—mother, father, uncle, brother, with friends, lifelong and long gone: a mixtape filled with his distinctive lyricism.”

—Melissa Llanes Brownlee, author of Hard Skin and Kahi and Lua

“Page by page, these stories transport, restore, nourish, and remind. They bring us chocolates and curries, mud and family, songs and sights from all over the planet. More than anything, they show us humanity. And for that, for this author, I am truly grateful.”

—Jack B. Bedell, Poet Laureate of Louisiana, 2017-2019

“Shome Dasgupta charts a sometimes surreal and always beautiful crossing of time and space….The past is always accessible, even as it shapeshifts on the altars of remembrance. Dasgupta reveals the radiant potentials of short form storytelling.”

—Ra’Niqua Lee, author of For What Ails You

Details:

• Publication date: July 9, 2024
  
• ISBN: 978-1-960215-19-2
• 160 pages
• Trim size: 5.5" x 8.5"

Looking for more Belle Point prose? Check out our 2024 bundle!