Check out the exclusive cover reveal for Chitra Demands to Go Home on Debutiful!
Publication Date: May 12, 2026
Available for pre-order
A poignant debut novel that explores mother-son relationships, cross-cultural conversations, and the tribulations of getting older.
Chitra Demands to Go Home tells the story of Chitra, a 75-year-old Bengali woman who feels trapped in an assisted living facility and just wants to go home.
Chitra spent her life taking care of her children and her husband in a foreign country and managing a grand house in Kolkata, India. Now, in her mid-seventies, widowed, and with her children living their own lives, Chitra plans to travel the world and enjoy the hospitality granted to respected family elders.
However, her plans are upended when she suffers a stroke and her younger son has a heart attack. Chitra then finds herself among American strangers in the institutional blandness of Tranquil Town, an assisted living facility in Columbus, Ohio. As her temporary stay stretches longer and longer, Chitra does everything she can to avoid making friends and convince her sons to take her home.
Describing both the bitter and the sweet, Chitra Demands to Go Home explores mother-son relationships, cross-cultural conversations, and the tribulations of getting older as Chitra plots her triumphant return to her home in Kolkata.
I was one of Poets & Writers’ Fall 2025 Fiction Fellows for their Get the Word Out publicity incubator!
About the author
Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay, who goes by “Raj”, originally trained as a scientist. After earning a Ph.D. in biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology, Raj launched a career in science communications. For nearly two decades, she worked as a science storyteller in various forms, including as a journalist and the leader of an award-winning custom content studio. Her science writing appeared in several print and digital outlets in the U.S. and the U.K.
You can check out some of Raj’s creative nonfiction and fiction on her Substack (a favorite essay pays homage to the Netflix show “Never have I ever”). Her debut novel, “Chitra Demands To Go Home,” will be published by Modern Artist Press in spring 2026.
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