The House of Uncommon Pleasures

Biswamit Dwibedy (Comparative Literature and English), The House of Uncommon Pleasures  

House of Uncommon Pleasures is a multimedia project that blends historical fiction, autobiography, documentary poetics, and creative non-fiction to explore the history of immigration from South Asia to Europe. The project is interested in the cultural exchange that results from migration, and will unearth new knowledge about the lives of artists, workers, and refugees who have moved to Paris, France, from the Indian Subcontinent over the last two hundred years. Possible outputs include the script for a series for digital platforms based on the earliest Indian immigrants to Europe; and a series of hybrid texts that revolve around the first Indian restaurant in London and retraces the journey of cooks, recipes, spices, and servants from South Asia to Europe. Using interviews, images, recordings, and testimonies, the project also includes a digital archive that will record the struggles that immigrant workers in the food and hospitality industry face in Paris, France today—a situation that has been made worse by the pandemic.