Author: Dawn Kawahara
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1403343020
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 578
Book Description
Jackals Wedding, my story within a family story set in India, the land of my birth, tells of a past of puzzling opposites. "Tigers, and oil, and tea are all I remember," I once blithely answered an Indian professor whod taken me for a whirl. When he stopped dead, held me at arms length and searched my eyes, I had to think twice about the superficial untruth Id blurted. There were many parts of my early life Id locked away in the dark, just like my mother, and my grandmother before her. The good things that surfaced were idealized, airbrushed into scenes worthy of Kipling, or The Little Princess. I knew the romantic version, but what was the truth? What had really happened during those years in India? How had my mother and father became ensnared in a storm and sun relationship, a "jackals wedding," with my sister and me dragged along unwittingly? How had the exigencies of wartime prevented them from dealing with their own blow-ups? What was the big taboo within our family? Why so many secrets locked away, as my mothers heart had seemed locked to me? I was hungry to know the truth, so I began to dig down to the beginning through my first memories that are entwined with the unrest of the times. With a stroke of serendipity, my husband convinced me I must return to India, the land of my birth, and my childhood home in Dehra Dun. During this trip together, time spans were erased. People stepped forward to help. Images and voices and feelings came flooding back, and I was ready to examine them as Id examined the belongings that had traveled half the world in battered leather cases. Brought to light, the joys of my childhood flashed vivid and fragile as glass bangles. Fears that had lurked large as nightmare lions and scary as snakes dissolved like thunderheads shrinking and fading into a quiet sky. In Jackals Wedding, the stories of the child I was and the woman Ive become are braided with my mothers story and the stories she told. Many times during the writing, it seemed she was back, whispering in my ear what she wasnt able to tell, in life. I am still searching for my father.
Jackals' Wedding
Author: Dawn Kawahara
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1403343020
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 578
Book Description
Jackals Wedding, my story within a family story set in India, the land of my birth, tells of a past of puzzling opposites. "Tigers, and oil, and tea are all I remember," I once blithely answered an Indian professor whod taken me for a whirl. When he stopped dead, held me at arms length and searched my eyes, I had to think twice about the superficial untruth Id blurted. There were many parts of my early life Id locked away in the dark, just like my mother, and my grandmother before her. The good things that surfaced were idealized, airbrushed into scenes worthy of Kipling, or The Little Princess. I knew the romantic version, but what was the truth? What had really happened during those years in India? How had my mother and father became ensnared in a storm and sun relationship, a "jackals wedding," with my sister and me dragged along unwittingly? How had the exigencies of wartime prevented them from dealing with their own blow-ups? What was the big taboo within our family? Why so many secrets locked away, as my mothers heart had seemed locked to me? I was hungry to know the truth, so I began to dig down to the beginning through my first memories that are entwined with the unrest of the times. With a stroke of serendipity, my husband convinced me I must return to India, the land of my birth, and my childhood home in Dehra Dun. During this trip together, time spans were erased. People stepped forward to help. Images and voices and feelings came flooding back, and I was ready to examine them as Id examined the belongings that had traveled half the world in battered leather cases. Brought to light, the joys of my childhood flashed vivid and fragile as glass bangles. Fears that had lurked large as nightmare lions and scary as snakes dissolved like thunderheads shrinking and fading into a quiet sky. In Jackals Wedding, the stories of the child I was and the woman Ive become are braided with my mothers story and the stories she told. Many times during the writing, it seemed she was back, whispering in my ear what she wasnt able to tell, in life. I am still searching for my father.
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1403343020
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 578
Book Description
Jackals Wedding, my story within a family story set in India, the land of my birth, tells of a past of puzzling opposites. "Tigers, and oil, and tea are all I remember," I once blithely answered an Indian professor whod taken me for a whirl. When he stopped dead, held me at arms length and searched my eyes, I had to think twice about the superficial untruth Id blurted. There were many parts of my early life Id locked away in the dark, just like my mother, and my grandmother before her. The good things that surfaced were idealized, airbrushed into scenes worthy of Kipling, or The Little Princess. I knew the romantic version, but what was the truth? What had really happened during those years in India? How had my mother and father became ensnared in a storm and sun relationship, a "jackals wedding," with my sister and me dragged along unwittingly? How had the exigencies of wartime prevented them from dealing with their own blow-ups? What was the big taboo within our family? Why so many secrets locked away, as my mothers heart had seemed locked to me? I was hungry to know the truth, so I began to dig down to the beginning through my first memories that are entwined with the unrest of the times. With a stroke of serendipity, my husband convinced me I must return to India, the land of my birth, and my childhood home in Dehra Dun. During this trip together, time spans were erased. People stepped forward to help. Images and voices and feelings came flooding back, and I was ready to examine them as Id examined the belongings that had traveled half the world in battered leather cases. Brought to light, the joys of my childhood flashed vivid and fragile as glass bangles. Fears that had lurked large as nightmare lions and scary as snakes dissolved like thunderheads shrinking and fading into a quiet sky. In Jackals Wedding, the stories of the child I was and the woman Ive become are braided with my mothers story and the stories she told. Many times during the writing, it seemed she was back, whispering in my ear what she wasnt able to tell, in life. I am still searching for my father.
Bush in Babylon
Author: Tariq Ali
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789609755
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
The assault and capture of Iraq-and the resistance it has provoked-will shape the politics of the twenty-first century. In this passionate and provocative book, Tariq Ali provides a history of Iraqi resistance against empires old and new, and argues against the view that sees imperialist occupation as the only viable solution to bring about regime-change in corrupt and dictatorial states. Like the author's previous work, The Clash of Fundamentalisms, this book presents a magnificent cultural history. Detailing the longstanding imperial ambitions of key figures in the Bush administration and how war profiteers close to Bush are cashing in, Bush in Babylon is unique in moving beyond the corporate looting by the US military government to offer the reader an expert and in-depth analysis of the extent of resistance to the US occupation in Iraq. On 15 February 2003, eight million people marched on the streets of five continents against a war that had not yet begun. A historically unprecedented number of people rejected official justifications for war that the secular Ba'ath Party of Iraq was connected to al-Qaeda or that "weapons of mass destruction" existed in the region, outside of Israel. More people than ever are convinced that the greatest threat to peace comes from the center of the American empire and its satrapies, with Blair and Sharon as lieutenants to the Commander-in-Chief. Examining how countries from Japan to France eventually rushed to support US aims, as well as the futile UN resistance, Tariq Ali proposes a re-founding of Mark Twain's mammoth American Anti-Imperialist League (which included William James, W.E.B. DuBois, William Dean Howells, and John Dewey) to carry forward the antiwar movement. Meanwhile, as Iraqis show unexpected hostility and independence, rather than gratitude, for "liberation," Ali is unique is uncovering the depth of the resistance now occurring inside occupied Iraq.
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789609755
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Book Description
The assault and capture of Iraq-and the resistance it has provoked-will shape the politics of the twenty-first century. In this passionate and provocative book, Tariq Ali provides a history of Iraqi resistance against empires old and new, and argues against the view that sees imperialist occupation as the only viable solution to bring about regime-change in corrupt and dictatorial states. Like the author's previous work, The Clash of Fundamentalisms, this book presents a magnificent cultural history. Detailing the longstanding imperial ambitions of key figures in the Bush administration and how war profiteers close to Bush are cashing in, Bush in Babylon is unique in moving beyond the corporate looting by the US military government to offer the reader an expert and in-depth analysis of the extent of resistance to the US occupation in Iraq. On 15 February 2003, eight million people marched on the streets of five continents against a war that had not yet begun. A historically unprecedented number of people rejected official justifications for war that the secular Ba'ath Party of Iraq was connected to al-Qaeda or that "weapons of mass destruction" existed in the region, outside of Israel. More people than ever are convinced that the greatest threat to peace comes from the center of the American empire and its satrapies, with Blair and Sharon as lieutenants to the Commander-in-Chief. Examining how countries from Japan to France eventually rushed to support US aims, as well as the futile UN resistance, Tariq Ali proposes a re-founding of Mark Twain's mammoth American Anti-Imperialist League (which included William James, W.E.B. DuBois, William Dean Howells, and John Dewey) to carry forward the antiwar movement. Meanwhile, as Iraqis show unexpected hostility and independence, rather than gratitude, for "liberation," Ali is unique is uncovering the depth of the resistance now occurring inside occupied Iraq.
You Can't Please All
Author: Tariq Ali
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1804290904
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 841
Book Description
A new memoir from renowned political activist and author of Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties The revolutionary upsurge of 1968–1975 jump-hopped continents with ease but finally petered out. What happened after is the subject of You Can’t Please All. Tariq Ali recounts a life committed to writing and cultural interventions. An eyewitness in Moscow to the fall of the Soviet Union, he was caught up in the intellectual excitement that had gripped the country. In Porto Alegre, Hugo Chávez invited him to visit Caracas, and the two men developed a striking friendship. Post-2001, as a founding member of the Stop the War Coalition, he became a fierce critic of the War on Terror, visiting many US cities with surprising regularity to engage in debate and discussion, inaugurating a new phase of political activism. Evident in his work is the integral part politics plays in his life. He is one of the most sought-after socialist and anti-imperialist public intellectuals on most continents. Underlying the narrative is a chain of anecdotes, reflections, jottings and storytelling. The book explores his work for the theatre and film, as well as his fiction, including the acclaimed Islam Quintet. There are pen portraits of friends and comrades such as Edward Said, Derek Jarman, Richard Ingrams, Benazir Bhutto, Mary-Kay Wilmers, and the intellectuals who founded and relaunched New Left Review: E. P. Thompson, Perry Anderson and Robin Blackburn. The book also contains a moving family portrait, describing how his parents met and lived during the early years of Pakistan.
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1804290904
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 841
Book Description
A new memoir from renowned political activist and author of Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties The revolutionary upsurge of 1968–1975 jump-hopped continents with ease but finally petered out. What happened after is the subject of You Can’t Please All. Tariq Ali recounts a life committed to writing and cultural interventions. An eyewitness in Moscow to the fall of the Soviet Union, he was caught up in the intellectual excitement that had gripped the country. In Porto Alegre, Hugo Chávez invited him to visit Caracas, and the two men developed a striking friendship. Post-2001, as a founding member of the Stop the War Coalition, he became a fierce critic of the War on Terror, visiting many US cities with surprising regularity to engage in debate and discussion, inaugurating a new phase of political activism. Evident in his work is the integral part politics plays in his life. He is one of the most sought-after socialist and anti-imperialist public intellectuals on most continents. Underlying the narrative is a chain of anecdotes, reflections, jottings and storytelling. The book explores his work for the theatre and film, as well as his fiction, including the acclaimed Islam Quintet. There are pen portraits of friends and comrades such as Edward Said, Derek Jarman, Richard Ingrams, Benazir Bhutto, Mary-Kay Wilmers, and the intellectuals who founded and relaunched New Left Review: E. P. Thompson, Perry Anderson and Robin Blackburn. The book also contains a moving family portrait, describing how his parents met and lived during the early years of Pakistan.
Burma Banyan
Author: Dawn Fraser Kawahara
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1728323312
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
In BURMA BANYAN, A Daughter’s Odyssey, the reader is invited on an intimate set of travels as the author overcomes qualms about returning to Burma after a life span. Memories of Dawnie, her child self, besiege her. These memories are not set in the peaceful, civilized atmosphere of Dehra Dun, nestled in the hills north of Delhi, the setting of her notable first memoir–Jackals’ Wedding, A Memoir of a Childhood in British India–but in remote areas of northern Burma and in Mandalay, the capital of “Upper Burmah,” in an unstable atmosphere and generally unsafe surroundings. The Burma sojourn of the author’s immediate family following Japanese occupation during World War II begins with a replay of their last days in India, continuing the compelling true story within a family story. Counterpoint with modern-day travels, the author once again revisits a long-locked past to probe the truth of romanticized early life. She reveals how she and her sister coped with expectations and warnings and absorbed the fears and insecurity of their parents in the aftermath of war to compound their own secret worries, how they became adept at assessing their grownups’ mood swings, and chameleonic in adapting themselves accordingly. Entertaining stories of the generations before, ancestors who settled in India and Burma from faraway lands, flow naturally as the daughters’ parents, Pansy and William, return to live for a time in the country of their birth. Their resulting storm-and-sun relationship, the nucleus of the symbolic “jackals’ wedding,” continues as such in BURMA BANYAN. Kawahara’s odyssey, which completes in an unexpected way, also takes readers from Hawai`i to the British Isles, and forays to Australia and New Zealand in search of “lost” family members. The search for a missing father–and a home–is the taproot of these journeys.
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1728323312
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
In BURMA BANYAN, A Daughter’s Odyssey, the reader is invited on an intimate set of travels as the author overcomes qualms about returning to Burma after a life span. Memories of Dawnie, her child self, besiege her. These memories are not set in the peaceful, civilized atmosphere of Dehra Dun, nestled in the hills north of Delhi, the setting of her notable first memoir–Jackals’ Wedding, A Memoir of a Childhood in British India–but in remote areas of northern Burma and in Mandalay, the capital of “Upper Burmah,” in an unstable atmosphere and generally unsafe surroundings. The Burma sojourn of the author’s immediate family following Japanese occupation during World War II begins with a replay of their last days in India, continuing the compelling true story within a family story. Counterpoint with modern-day travels, the author once again revisits a long-locked past to probe the truth of romanticized early life. She reveals how she and her sister coped with expectations and warnings and absorbed the fears and insecurity of their parents in the aftermath of war to compound their own secret worries, how they became adept at assessing their grownups’ mood swings, and chameleonic in adapting themselves accordingly. Entertaining stories of the generations before, ancestors who settled in India and Burma from faraway lands, flow naturally as the daughters’ parents, Pansy and William, return to live for a time in the country of their birth. Their resulting storm-and-sun relationship, the nucleus of the symbolic “jackals’ wedding,” continues as such in BURMA BANYAN. Kawahara’s odyssey, which completes in an unexpected way, also takes readers from Hawai`i to the British Isles, and forays to Australia and New Zealand in search of “lost” family members. The search for a missing father–and a home–is the taproot of these journeys.
The Verso Book of Dissent
Author: Andrew Hsiao
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784783080
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 569
Book Description
Fully updated compendium of revolt and resistance Throughout the ages and across every continent, people have struggled against those in power and raised their voices in protest-rallying others around them or, sometimes, inspiring uprisings many years later. Their echoes reverberate from Ancient Greece, China and Egypt, via the dissident poets and philosophers of Islam and Judaism, through to the Arab slave revolts and anti-Ottoman rebellions of the Middle Ages. These sources were tapped during the Dutch and English revolutions at the outset of the Modern world, and in turn flowed into the French, Haitian, American, Russian and Chinese revolutions. More recently, resistance to war and economic oppression has flared up on battlefields and in public spaces from Beijing and Cairo to Moscow and New York City. This anthology, global in scope, presents voices of dissent from every era of human history: speeches and pamphlets, poems and songs, plays and manifestos. Every age has its iconoclasts, and yet the greatest among them build on the words and actions of their forerunners. The Verso Book of Dissent should be in the arsenal of every rebel who understands that words and ideas are the ultimate weapons.
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784783080
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 569
Book Description
Fully updated compendium of revolt and resistance Throughout the ages and across every continent, people have struggled against those in power and raised their voices in protest-rallying others around them or, sometimes, inspiring uprisings many years later. Their echoes reverberate from Ancient Greece, China and Egypt, via the dissident poets and philosophers of Islam and Judaism, through to the Arab slave revolts and anti-Ottoman rebellions of the Middle Ages. These sources were tapped during the Dutch and English revolutions at the outset of the Modern world, and in turn flowed into the French, Haitian, American, Russian and Chinese revolutions. More recently, resistance to war and economic oppression has flared up on battlefields and in public spaces from Beijing and Cairo to Moscow and New York City. This anthology, global in scope, presents voices of dissent from every era of human history: speeches and pamphlets, poems and songs, plays and manifestos. Every age has its iconoclasts, and yet the greatest among them build on the words and actions of their forerunners. The Verso Book of Dissent should be in the arsenal of every rebel who understands that words and ideas are the ultimate weapons.
Behold Kaua'i
Author: Dawn Fraser Kawahara
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1463470037
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
This book invites you to an island described by many as paradise. Behold Kaua`i is designed to bring you lasting enjoyment and insight through the poet’s eyes, and a sense of this far-flung and ancient island in modern times and from a Hawaiian cultural and historical perspective. Behold Kaua`i is not meant to be read in one sitting, but savored as one savors and enjoys a special friend or lover, or a favorite place in which to dream and renew. As with a best friend or love who remains constant and vital, it is hoped that your initial encounter and many return engagements deepen and intensify your experience with this collection of sensitive and sensuous poems and descriptive notes.
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1463470037
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 148
Book Description
This book invites you to an island described by many as paradise. Behold Kaua`i is designed to bring you lasting enjoyment and insight through the poet’s eyes, and a sense of this far-flung and ancient island in modern times and from a Hawaiian cultural and historical perspective. Behold Kaua`i is not meant to be read in one sitting, but savored as one savors and enjoys a special friend or lover, or a favorite place in which to dream and renew. As with a best friend or love who remains constant and vital, it is hoped that your initial encounter and many return engagements deepen and intensify your experience with this collection of sensitive and sensuous poems and descriptive notes.
The 'Green Flash' Calabash
Author: Dawn Fraser Kawahara
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1665525894
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Book Description
This book comes as your ticket to a virtual vacation, inviting you to dive into the heart of the tropical island of Kaua`i, Hawai`i, U.S.A. Please come, especially if you are a “capital ‘T’ Traveler” who digs deeper than surface pleasures of a new place, connects with people of the land, and celebrates differences as well as similarities. You may explore from front to back, vice-versa, or spot-read whatever pages fall open to your touch. All will be right. By accepting the author’s invitation, you’re assured of eventual enjoyment of thought-provoking segments categorized as “Outdoor Discoveries,” “Island Celebrations,” “Eyes to Sky, & Sea,” “Umbilical Ties” and more, including a drink from “The Water of Life.” Kaua`i island could be considered your adventure to “Anyplace, World.” Aside from particularities of discoverers and settlement, the foundational needs and desires of all peoples of the world hold true: A homeland–a place of freedom and peace; a place to work and sustain a healthy life, to play and recreate; a safe place to raise and educate children; a place to protect, preserve, love and pass forward to coming generations. The time span covered draws from the onset of swift modern development and increased tourism that threatens a cherished lifestyle to the threshold of COVID-19. The Afterword deals with the isolation the life-threatening pandemic imposes, and the economic and emotional challenges that stem from an isolation severely underlined when an island home already lies as a far speck within the wide Pacific Ocean. The guiding mantra throughout–”Believe in the Unexpected!”–from the author’s “Green Flash” experience shared with her “Dear Readers,” holds truer than true as we move with hope and courage into our globally-connected future.
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1665525894
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Book Description
This book comes as your ticket to a virtual vacation, inviting you to dive into the heart of the tropical island of Kaua`i, Hawai`i, U.S.A. Please come, especially if you are a “capital ‘T’ Traveler” who digs deeper than surface pleasures of a new place, connects with people of the land, and celebrates differences as well as similarities. You may explore from front to back, vice-versa, or spot-read whatever pages fall open to your touch. All will be right. By accepting the author’s invitation, you’re assured of eventual enjoyment of thought-provoking segments categorized as “Outdoor Discoveries,” “Island Celebrations,” “Eyes to Sky, & Sea,” “Umbilical Ties” and more, including a drink from “The Water of Life.” Kaua`i island could be considered your adventure to “Anyplace, World.” Aside from particularities of discoverers and settlement, the foundational needs and desires of all peoples of the world hold true: A homeland–a place of freedom and peace; a place to work and sustain a healthy life, to play and recreate; a safe place to raise and educate children; a place to protect, preserve, love and pass forward to coming generations. The time span covered draws from the onset of swift modern development and increased tourism that threatens a cherished lifestyle to the threshold of COVID-19. The Afterword deals with the isolation the life-threatening pandemic imposes, and the economic and emotional challenges that stem from an isolation severely underlined when an island home already lies as a far speck within the wide Pacific Ocean. The guiding mantra throughout–”Believe in the Unexpected!”–from the author’s “Green Flash” experience shared with her “Dear Readers,” holds truer than true as we move with hope and courage into our globally-connected future.
An Empire is Born
Author: Tabatha Everhart - Hatley
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1483699889
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 94
Book Description
A snigle choice can change ones life this is the hard turth that Chirstina Florces is facing. A choice to do what her family beileve and knows she can do or to turn and cut ties with everything she beileve and loves in. As she makes her choice she learns of a forbbiened love while trying to have a normal life. While overcoming the obculted that come acrossed her path Chirs is faced with another choice to do the unlimate sarcfcited for the fate and well begin of her family or do nothing and risk everything she has worked for. Nobody said life was going to be easy.
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1483699889
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 94
Book Description
A snigle choice can change ones life this is the hard turth that Chirstina Florces is facing. A choice to do what her family beileve and knows she can do or to turn and cut ties with everything she beileve and loves in. As she makes her choice she learns of a forbbiened love while trying to have a normal life. While overcoming the obculted that come acrossed her path Chirs is faced with another choice to do the unlimate sarcfcited for the fate and well begin of her family or do nothing and risk everything she has worked for. Nobody said life was going to be easy.
The Book Review
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Books
Languages : en
Pages : 624
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Books
Languages : en
Pages : 624
Book Description
Folk-Tales of Bengal
Author: Lal Behari Dey
Publisher: Graphic Arts Books
ISBN: 1513288369
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 142
Book Description
Folk Tales of Bengal: Life’s Secret (1883) is a collection of stories by Lal Behari Dey. Inspired by the stories told to him by village elders in his boyhood, Lal Behari Dey wrote Folk Tales of Bengal: Life’s Secret in order to portray the lives and traditions of Bengali peasants in a positive, human light. Praised by Charles Darwin for his novel Govinda Samanta: Or the History of a Bengal Raiyat, Lal Behari Dey was awarded a substantial prize for his literary achievements by a prominent Bengali zamindar, cementing his reputation as a pioneering figure in Bengali literature. “I have reason to believe that the stories given in this book are a genuine sample of the old old stories told by old Bengali women from age to age through a hundred generations.” With this certificate of authenticity, Lal Behari Dey presents the stories of his youth in Bengal, stories of kings and queens, gods and monsters, of rich and poor and everything in between. In “Life’s Secret,” he tells the tale of Suo, a beautiful queen who has been unable to give birth to a son for her impatient, powerful husband. Just as she is ready to give in to despair, a mysterious healer presents her with a magical drug that will grant her the fertility she seeks. In “Phakir Chand,” two young friends on a journey to a foreign land encounter a princess held captive by a terrifying serpent. Saving her, they agree to remain at her palace, but only one of them can take her hand in marriage. Charming, instructive, and often surprising, Folk Tales of Bengal: Life’s Secret is an underappreciated masterpiece of Bengali literature from Lal Behari Dey. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Lal Behari Dey’s Folk Tales of Bengal: Life’s Secret is a classic work of Bengali literature reimagined for modern readers.
Publisher: Graphic Arts Books
ISBN: 1513288369
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 142
Book Description
Folk Tales of Bengal: Life’s Secret (1883) is a collection of stories by Lal Behari Dey. Inspired by the stories told to him by village elders in his boyhood, Lal Behari Dey wrote Folk Tales of Bengal: Life’s Secret in order to portray the lives and traditions of Bengali peasants in a positive, human light. Praised by Charles Darwin for his novel Govinda Samanta: Or the History of a Bengal Raiyat, Lal Behari Dey was awarded a substantial prize for his literary achievements by a prominent Bengali zamindar, cementing his reputation as a pioneering figure in Bengali literature. “I have reason to believe that the stories given in this book are a genuine sample of the old old stories told by old Bengali women from age to age through a hundred generations.” With this certificate of authenticity, Lal Behari Dey presents the stories of his youth in Bengal, stories of kings and queens, gods and monsters, of rich and poor and everything in between. In “Life’s Secret,” he tells the tale of Suo, a beautiful queen who has been unable to give birth to a son for her impatient, powerful husband. Just as she is ready to give in to despair, a mysterious healer presents her with a magical drug that will grant her the fertility she seeks. In “Phakir Chand,” two young friends on a journey to a foreign land encounter a princess held captive by a terrifying serpent. Saving her, they agree to remain at her palace, but only one of them can take her hand in marriage. Charming, instructive, and often surprising, Folk Tales of Bengal: Life’s Secret is an underappreciated masterpiece of Bengali literature from Lal Behari Dey. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Lal Behari Dey’s Folk Tales of Bengal: Life’s Secret is a classic work of Bengali literature reimagined for modern readers.