Once Upon a Time in Scandinavistan

01 July 2010
ECHOSTREAM
ECHOSTREAM

What happens when Europe is colonised by India in the not too distant future? Welcome to Scandinavistan, where a beef-eating Swedish minority is ghettoized by cow-worshipping desis and IAS officers run what is now the Asiatic Union. Watching over its crime-stricken harbour town Gautampuri (née Gothenburg) is Herman Barsk, bumbling public intelligence officer and loser extraordinaire, not-so-hot on the heels of a cannibalistic serial killer last spotted at the Tandoori Moose but fast in pursuit of his lady Kumkum.We bring you an early look at Zac O’Yeah’s hilarious comic debut, a darkly disgusting satirical thriller.

Excerpted with permission from Once Upon a Time in Scandinavistan by Zac O’Yeah (forthcoming from Hachette Books India, August 2010)

BESIDE THE ROAD the river flowed past, murky and greyish, like an unflushed toilet.

Zac O’Yeah is the author of the forthcoming detective novel Once Upon A Time In Scandinavistan. He has translated Indian writers such as Pankaj Mishra and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee into Swedish.

Keywords: fiction India Europe Scandinavistan Tandoori Moose Herman Barsk Gautampuri Zac O'Yeah colonization
COMMENT