In Could You Please, Please Stop Singing, Sabyasachi (Sachi) Nag takes a step away from skepticism, blending humour with shock and surprise, seeking a return to childhood in "Mamuda's Fries," innocence in "Conversations with the Country Activist" and fractals for the future in the yet to be invented "Seedless Avocado." In attempting what Tomas Transromer calls "walking through walls," Nag hurts and sickens himself with awe and rage. The title poem "Could You Please, Please Stop Singing?" purposely evokes the famous Hemingway line from Men Without Women and is central to the overall tonality of this collection, that straddles a path alternately mocking and dead serious, and that occasionally yields to contrary pulls between the banal and the sublime

An act of passion reverberates across continents when Visma Sen, a retired army officer, decides to remain in Calcutta when his family migrates to Canada.

Sabyasachi Nag evokes the rising heat of Calcutta in the early morning as masterfully as he depicts the calmness of a snow-lit evening street in Brampton, Ontario while the entangled lives of the Sens of Shulut unfurl over three decades. Each linked story is told through the voice of a different member of the Sen family, from Nilroy’s movingly excruciating first day as caregiver to Aunt Rita with dementia to Milli’s ambition to host her guru Mata G. The experiences of each character draw a portrait of the Sen family, whose wounds drive them to pursue an ever-elusive happiness, while clearly yearning for identity and belonging.

Sabyasachi Nag's profile page

"I admire how loss is conveyed through the image of sweat … 'A seven—year—old is abandoned by a father… anticipates his departure, relishing every last moment that leads up to it' … I'm very impressed by the power and economy."
? Poet Pascale Petit discussing Nag's poems in The Guardian
"This is a truly amazing collection … as a complete body of work, it is extremely powerful and stirring … the poems' observations have a wonderful richness and eloquence and complexity to them and there is a strong and constant thread of humanity that flows through it all."
-- Judith Christine Mills, author and illustrator of The Goodfellow Chronicles trilogy.
"Poems are meant to be read aloud, and Sachi's read beautifully; evoking Calcutta through the school recess and rickshaws darting pass skies reflected on puddle … just wonderful!"
-- Kwai Li, Author of The Palm Leaf Fan and Other Stories: And Other Stories