In Amit Chaudhuri's novels, simple plots unfold into dramas of profound emotional resonance. A boy's visit with relatives conjures the melancholy comforts of family. An Indian student at an English university contemplates the conflicted relationship between an immigrant and his homeland. And the task of marrying off a "problem" son illuminates the complex community of cultures that is modern Calcutta.Freedom Song -- which collects three of Chaudhuri's novels -- celebrates the rhythms of modern India. Here is a world so vividly rendered that a son's newspaper route bespeaks an intergenerational rift, and the dervishing spin of a ceiling fan seems recollected from our own dreams. In prose that has won him comparisons to the master stylists of this century but that emerges as fiercely his own, Chaudhuri delivers that which is most fascinating about any culture: the everyday acts of its people. Beautifully written, hauntingly wise, Freedom Song announces a young writer of extraordinary gifts.