The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel Of Fevers, Delirium And Discovery, written in English by the Indian author Amitav Ghosh, is a medical thriller that takes several seemingly unrelated people on a dramatic adventure. The book is set in unspecified times in the past and the future. It is, to some extent, based on the life of Sir Ronald Ross, a scientist who conducted path-breaking research on malaria in Calcutta in 1898. In the book, a person called L. Murugan is fascinated with the life and research of Sir Ross. He sets out on a mission to unearth the elusive Calcutta Chromosome , a discovery purported to be a modern-day elixir of life. Murugan s life gets mysteriously intertwined with the lives of two other people, deepening the plot. The events in the book occur in non-linear fashion, navigating back and forth through different times and locations. The book was published in 1995. It went on to win the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1997. This particular edition is a 2009 reprint by Penguin Books.