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reviewed Sojourn by Amit Chaudhuri

Sojourn (2022, New York Review of Books, Incorporated, The) 5 stars

Captivatingly random, like getting to know a new place

5 stars

In some sense, this short novel manages to capture the essence of coming to a new place. The randomness, fleeting encounters, few of them last, getting lost, etc. In many ways it reminded me of my own first few months after moving to Berlin.

I've only gotten slightly irritated by some of the geographical inaccuracies, for example my local U-Bahn station was described as if it were to have two side platforms, while in reality it is a single island platform. I kept wondering if and how geographical fact checking took place in the editorial process. Sometimes the inaccuracies felt like they helped the storytelling, but other times there was no apparent benefit.