Paratext city as text:new strategies in reading (and mapping) in Sarnath Banerjee’s The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers

Gérard Genette famously argued ‘there does not exist, and there never existed, a text without paratext’ (Genette, 263). Yet, Sarnath Banerjee’s graphic narrative The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers presents itself as a case that veers away from Genette’s claims. Upon closer inspection, the book reveals itself to be a series of paratextual information about a text that, in fact, does not exist. How then must one read such a book? And how must one map the city within the book (Calcutta, no)? Banerjee engages with the city by way of paratexts as well. This paper explores Banerjee’s endeavours to transform existing theories and his attempts to invent new ones as they serve as an invitation to ‘read’ his graphic narrative – a network of paratexts for one or more invisible texts – and the ramifications this has for the way in which we think of the act of ‘reading’ as a whole, as well as encouraging a reconsideration of how the contemporary postcolonial urban is mapped.