Château Rouge by Amit Chaudhuri

From New York Review of Books

A meditative and fragmentary novel about a writer invited to a residency in Paris, where he sublets an apartment in the Château Rouge area--an experience that eventually leads him to a newly expansive attitude toward the city.

I was beginning to feel it would be best not to settle down in areas recognisably Parisian, because places recognisably themselves tend to be fictitious.

A writer is invited to Paris and finds himself living in an area that bears little resemblance to his idea of the city. With the passing of time, his disquiet translates into a way of seeking and experiencing a truer, more unlikely Paris.

Château Rouge takes up residence in that area before floating freely through the city. It takes its time, exploring tangents, diversions, side streets, creeping into new spaces and remote angles, to open up fresh ground and appraise the city, the experience of travel, otherness--and the novel itself--anew.