Book excerpt: Set in France in the second half of the nineteenth century, The Diary of Mademoiselle D'Arversis a novel of possibilities and limitations; of love, marriage and domesticity, and the heartaches and joys of growing up. Fifteen-year-old Marguerite, fresh from her convent education and extremely religious, returns to her family and experiences the first stirrings of love, only to find herself entangled in a complicated net of relationships. The story traces Marguerite's growth through adolescence to maturity and marital happiness. Written in secret and discovered by the author's father after her death, this poignant novel is a unique and unexpected outcome of the intellectual, linguistic, and cultural ferment of nineteenth-century colonial Bengal.