The Fragrance of Rain is a vivid portrait of India’s most distinct season—the monsoon. From the first crack of thunder in the salt-heavy air of Kerala, to raging storms over Mussoorie and the rain-drenched forests of Goa, award-winning author Stephen Alter follows the great weather system that has steered traders across oceans, carved river valleys, fuelled entire ecosystems, inspired generations of poets, and unsettled empires. Along the way, we meet perfumers in Kannauj who bottle the scent of rain, Nilgiri tahr grazing in cloud gardens, herpetologists tracking glowing fungi and elusive caecilians, fishermen watching the sky for warnings, and artists, musicians, and writers who have given the monsoon its enduring metaphors.
Both intimate and expansive, The Fragrance of Rain offers an essential portrait of India’s defining rhythm, a force at once timeless, unpredictable, and endlessly renewing.
Stephen Alter is the author of more than twenty-five books of fiction and non-fiction. He is the recipient of the first Radisson Mountain Echoes Nature Prize in 2025. Wild Himalaya: A Natural History of the Greatest Mountain Range on Earth, a work of non-fiction, received the 2020 Banff Mountain Book Award in the Mountain Environment and Natural History category. His memoir, Becoming a Mountain: Himalayan Journeys in Search of the Sacred and the Sublime, won the Kekoo Naoroji Book Award for Himalayan Literature. In the Jungles of the Night, a novel about Jim Corbett, was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. His latest work includes The Cobra’s Gaze: Exploring India’s Wild Heritage, Death in Shambles: A Hill Station Mystery, and Birdwatching: A Novel, which won the 2023 Greenlitfest Book of the Year. Alter has taught at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, where he was director of the writing program for seven years. Following this, he was writer-in-residence at MIT for ten years. Among the honours he has received are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Program, the East-West Center in Hawaii, and the Banff Centre for Mountain Culture.
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