Five hundred years ago, four people set out on individual journeys of discovery: In the quest for enlightenment and bags of gold, one travels to the end of the known world, another meddles with the fates of kings, a third loses all he had, and a fourth finds the City of Love.

Set in the half century after Vasco da Gama’s historic landfall in India, this is the story of four intertwined lives: Fernando Almenara, a Castilian trader fleeing persecution in his native country; Daud Suleiman al-Basri, a Moorish pirate driven by his desire for wealth and power; Chandu, a Shaiva–Tantric novice in search of salvation that continues to elude him; and Bajja, a tribal girl determinedly seeking spiritual freedom.

As the scene shifts from Chittagong, foremost port of the East, to Gaur, the capital of sixteenth-century Bengal, Rimi B. Chatterjee recreates an incredible era in our history. It is a time of turmoil, when European battleships mark out territories in Indian waters and native rulers clash swords with the mighty Mughals. And as new religions invade the space of ancient faiths, ordinary people are compelled to question all that they believe in.

The City of Love is a fascinating tale of passion and high adventure in which truth, virtue and friendship make war upon the darkness of the human soul.