Edge of Faith

by Prabuddha Dasgupta (Author), William Dalrymple (Author)

Prabuddha Dasgupta (1956–2012) was a self-taught photographer who grew up in the cultural chaos of post-colonial India. Beginning his career as a copywriter, he turned to photography in the late 1980s and quickly established himself as one of the most celebrated fashion photographers in the country — working for Vogue, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, and GQ, and shooting the first generation of Indian supermodels.

Edge of Faith is a departure from that world — quieter, more searching. Located on the west coast of India along the Arabian Sea, Goa officially became an Indian state in 1987 after nearly 500 years of Portuguese rule. This conflict of cultures is what Dasgupta sets out to document. The book's 70 photographs create an intimate portrait of the Catholic community in Goa rarely seen before — a portrait of people torn between their fidelity to a history of Portuguese faith and culture and their post-Independence Indian identity.

Accompanying the photographs is a text by acclaimed travel writer William Dalrymple, which explores both the history of Goa's Catholic past and its struggle to navigate a multi-cultural, multi-religious present. Together, image and word capture Catholic Goa in a haunting, beautiful impasse — caught between comforting nostalgia and a doubt-ridden future.

A rare photobook by a photographer who never got to finish his final body of work.