Rupleena Bose’s novel spans a decade, beginning in 2010, and explores the interiority of a young university teacher as she navigates her social, political, and emotional everyday. The seemingly autobiographical novel, written in diary form, recounts the unnamed narrator’s journey within herself and to different geographies—both within and outside India—with shifting temporalities to provide a window into contemporary politics as the characters negotiate with the events and everyday that mark their lives.
A novel about the narrator and its characters’ becoming, Summer of Then begins with the spring in Calcutta and her meeting with Zap—born Zafar to inter-religious parents—who remains the narrator’s unrequited romantic interest.