Distinctive. Brilliant. Ambitious. Rooted. These and many other such attributes are the hallmarks of people from the small towns and peripheries of India. In this extraordinary, eye-opening book, Sumana Roy, a proud provincial, shows us how those from small towns are fully the equal of their urban peers. She builds her thesis by introducing us to a diverse array of individuals—writers, artists, filmmakers, cricketers, tour guides, English tutors, lovers, and chroniclers—whose stories and creations provide answers to the question—who is a provincial? Blending personal narrative with the cultural, sensory, and emotive heritage of overlooked communities, Roy puts paid to the notion that metropolitan culture is superior while unearthing the exuberance and magic of provincial life, with its quirks, jests, passions, and poignant absurdities.

Through a captivating collection of ‘postcards’ from the outskirts of India (and further afield—Europe, America, and the Middle East), Roy immerses us in the imaginative realm of those who revel in their provinciality. Delving into the lives and works of Rabindranath Tagore, the Bhakti poets, Kishore Kumar, William Shakespeare, John Clare, T. S. Eliot, J. M. Coetzee, V. S. Naipaul, the Brontës, Annie Ernaux, and others, she celebrates the wit, mirth, whimsy, and irony of small-town lives and living.