The Author
About Sanjoy Banerjee
Quick Facts
A fifteen-year quest to the page
Sanjoy Banerjee’s debut novel, In Quest – The Awakening, began as a seed of an idea in 2011 and grew over fifteen years into a fully realised work of literary fiction. The novel reflects Sanjoy’s deep interest in the tension between ambition and meaning — a tension familiar to millions navigating modern corporate life.
Set across the grey corridors of corporate Delhi and the mist-draped jungles of Northeast India, the book draws on authentic cultural grounding and visceral sensory detail to create a world that feels both deeply Indian and universally human.
While the characters and events are entirely fictional, the emotions and questions they grapple with — burnout, identity, surrender, transformation — are universal. Sanjoy writes for those who have ever asked: “Is this really it?”
Acknowledgements
“I am grateful to everyone who encouraged me to keep writing, even when the path seemed unclear. To my family and friends who believed in this project, thank you for your patience and support.”
— Sanjoy Banerjee
Themes Explored
The Writing Journey: 2011 – 2026
Fifteen years from first idea to published novel. Here is how In Quest came to exist.
Where the Story Began
In Quest: The Awakening is the product of a fifteen-year conversation between Sanjoy Banerjee and a question that would not leave him alone: what happens to the person inside the corporate machine who still has a self that hasn’t been optimised away?
The seed was planted in 2011 — not as a plot or a character, but as a feeling. The specific texture of high-achieving urban Indian professional life: the commutes, the performance reviews, the spreadsheets that measure everything except whether any of it means anything. Sanjoy had spent years observing this world from inside it. He recognised the Teflon Layer before he had a name for it.
The question that drove the novel’s fifteen-year development was not “what happens in the plot?” but “what does it actually feel like to wake up?” Not as a dramatic conversion, but as the slow, uncomfortable, irreversible process of becoming honest with yourself. That process needed the right container — and the right container, it turned out, was the specific geography of Arunachal Pradesh: a place that resists every form of corporate logic.
Why This Story Took Fifteen Years
The honest answer is that the story needed to wait for the author to be ready to tell it truthfully. Early drafts of the material were technically accomplished but emotionally careful — protecting the reader from the full weight of what the characters go through. The fifteen-year timeline is partly the process of learning to write without that protection.
There was also the challenge of research. The Panch Tatwa framework at the novel’s heart is rooted in genuine Vedic and yogic tradition. Getting it right — understanding not just the philosophical framework but how it would actually be taught, lived, and experienced — required sustained engagement with the source material and with people who carry that knowledge. This was not work that could be rushed.
Arunachal Pradesh itself required careful research. The ILP system, the timber mafia context, the indigenous communities, the specific geography of Papum Reserve Forest — these details needed to be right both for the story’s integrity and out of respect for the place and its people. The novel is fiction, but the world it inhabits is real.
The Publishing Journey: Notion Press
In Quest: The Awakening is published by Notion Press, one of India’s leading independent publishing platforms. The book is available in three editions — Paperback, Ebook, and Hardcover — across Amazon India, Flipkart, Notion Press Direct, and international markets.
The ISBNs for each edition are:
- Paperback: 978-93-5780-964-1
- Ebook: 978-93-5773-076-1
- Hardcover: 979-8-904317-31-7
The decision to publish independently reflects the same values the novel explores: a commitment to the work on its own terms, without waiting for permission from gatekeepers whose metrics don’t necessarily measure what matters.
What In Quest Is For
Sanjoy writes for a specific reader: the professional who is good at their job and hollow at its edges. The person who has achieved what they were supposed to achieve and found the achievement lighter than expected. The seeker who is not sure they want to be called a seeker. The Indian professional who recognises the corporate world and also recognises something older and deeper pulling at them from beneath it.
In Quest sits in the tradition of Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts — books that use the journey narrative to explore interior transformation. But it is distinctly Indian in its grounding: the specific culture of corporate Delhi, the specific geography of Arunachal Pradesh, the specific spiritual traditions of the subcontinent.
If you have ever stood on a bridge and wondered if you were on the right one, this book was written for you.
Connect
Sanjoy welcomes conversations with readers, book clubs, and literary communities. For speaking engagements, press enquiries, or simply to share your reading experience:
In Quest: The Awakening — Published 2026 by Notion Press — View Book Details