Fiction. South Asia Studies. "Sharmistha Mohanty is remarkable above all for her determination to shift narrative away from the easy urgencies of Western fiction towards a text that hovers between the contemplative and the hypnotic, sculpting extended landscapes of feeling from the quiet friction between realism and myth. To read FIVE MOVEMENTS IN PRAISE is like coming across an animal of a new species, but one that immediately appears to be in tune with its environment."