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books tagged “diaspora”
books tagged “diaspora”
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Afro-Creole: Power, Opposition, and Play in the Caribbeanby Richard D.E. BurtonISBN 0801483255 (0-8014-8325-5)
Softcover, Cornell Univ Pr
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Aime Cesaireby Aime CesaireISBN 0520053206 (0-520-05320-6)
Softcover, Univ of California Pr
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A Bend in the Riverby V.S. NaipaulISBN 0679722025 (0-679-72202-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Bend in the River'Book summary:Brilliant and terrifying'-Observer I had to be the man who was doing well and more than well, the man whose drab shop concealed some bigger operation that made millions. I had to be the man who had planned it all, who had come to the destroyed town at the bend in the river because he had foreseen the rich future. 'Salim, the narrator, is a young man from an Indian family of traders long resident on the coast of Centeral Africa. Salim has left the coast to make his way in the interior, there to take on a small trading shop of this and that, sudries, sold to the natives. The place is "a bend in the river"; it is Africa. The time is post-colonial, the time of Independence. The Europeans have withdrawn or been forced to withdraw and the scene is one of chaos, violent change, warring tribes, ignorance, isolation, poverty and a lack of prepartion for the modern world they have entered, or partially assumed as a sort of decoration. It is a story of historical upheaval and social breakdown. Naipaul has fashioned a work of intense imaginative force. It is a haunting creation, rich with incident and human bafflement, played out in an immense detail of landscape rendered with a poignant brilliance.'-Elizabeth Hardwick 'Always a master of fictional landscape, Naipaul here shows, in his variety of human examples and in his search for underlying social causes, a Tolstoyan spirit'-John Updike [via]
More editions of A Bend in the River:
- A Bend in the River: ISBN 0844666319 (0-8446-6631-9)
Hardcover, Peter Smith Pub Inc - A Bend in the River: ISBN 0394505735 (0-394-50573-5)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group - A Bend in the River: ISBN 0394743148 (0-394-74314-8)
Hardcover, Vintage Books - A Bend in the River: ISBN 0679602674 (0-679-60267-4)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - A Bend in the River: ISBN 0783886160 (0-7838-8616-0)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr - A Bend in the River: ISBN 0679722025 (0-679-72202-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
- A Bend in the River: ISBN 0844666319 (0-8446-6631-9)
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The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousnessby Paul GilroyISBN 0674076060 (0-674-07606-0)
Softcover, Harvard Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness'Book summary:Afrocentrism. Eurocentrism. Caribbean Studies. British Studies. To the forces of cultural nationalism hunkered down in their camps, this bold hook sounds a liberating call. There is,Paul Gilroy tells us, a culture that is not specifically African, American, Caribbean, or British, but all of these at once, a black Atlantic culture whose themes and techniques transcend ethnicity and nationality to produce something new and, until now, unremarked. Challenging the practices and assumptions of cultural studies, The Black Atlantic also complicates and enriches our understanding of modernism.
Debates about postmodernism have cast an unfashionable pall over questions of historical periodization. Gilroy bucks this trend by arguing that the development of black culture in the Americas arid Europe is a historical experience which can be called modern for a number of clear and specific reasons. For Hegel, the dialectic of master and slave was integral to modernity, and Gilroy considers the implications of this idea for a transatlantic culture. In search of a poetics reflecting the politics and history of this culture, he takes us on a transatlantic tour of the music that, for centuries, has transmitted racial messages and feeling around the world, from the Jubilee Singers in the nineteenth century to Jimi Hendrix to rap. He also explores this internationalism as it is manifested in black writing from the "double consciousness" of W. E. B. Du Bois to the "double vision" of Richard Wright to the compelling voice of Toni Morrison.
In a final tour de force, Gilroy exposes the shared contours of black and Jewish concepts of diaspora in order both to establish a theoretical basis for healing rifts between blacks and Jews in contemporary culture and to further define the central theme of his book: that blacks have shaped a nationalism, if not a nation, within the shared culture of the black Atlantic.
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Bombay Timeby Thrity N. UmrigarISBN 0312286236 (0-312-28623-6)
Softcover, Picador USA
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Brick Laneby Monica AliISBN 0743243315 (0-7432-4331-5)
Softcover, Scribner
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Brick Lane'Book summary:With its gritty Tower Hamlets setting, this sharply observed contemporary novel about the life of an Asian immigrant girl deals cogently with issues of love, cultural difference and the human spirit. The pre-publicity hype about Brick Lane was precisely the kind to set alarm bells ringing (we've heard it so often before), but, for once, the excitement is fully justified: Monica Ali's debut novel demonstrates that there is a new voice in modern fiction to be reckoned with.
Nazneen is a teenager forced into an arranged marriage with a man considerably older than her--a man whose expectations of life are so low that misery seems to stretch ahead for her. Fearfully leaving the sultry oppression of her Bangladeshi village, Nazneen finds herself cloistered in a small flat in a high-rise block in the East End of London. Because she speaks no English, she is obliged to depend totally on her husband. But it becomes apparent that, of the two, she is the real survivor: more able to deal with the ways of the world, and a better judge of the vagaries of human behaviour. She makes friends with another Asian girl, Razia, who is the conduit to her understanding of the unsettling ways of her new homeland.
This is a novel of genuine insight, with the kind of characterisation that reminds the reader at every turn just what the novel form is capable of. Every character (Nazneen, her disappointed husband and her resourceful friend Razia) is drawn with the complexity that can really only be found in the novel these days. In some ways, the reader is given the same all-encompassing experience as in a Dickens novel: humour and tragedy rub shoulders in a narrative that inexorably grips the reader. Whether or not Monica Ali can follow up this achievement is a question for the future; it's enough to say right now that Brick Lane is an essential read for anyone interested in current British fiction. --Barry Forshaw [via]
Cereus Blooms at Nightby Shani MootooISBN 0380731991 (0-380-73199-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cereus Blooms at Night'Book summary:There is much to admire about Shani Mootoo's first novel, Cereus Blooms at Night. In telling the tale of Mala Ramchandin, her sister, Asha, her childhood sweetheart Ambrose "Boyie" Mohanty, and the other inhabitants of the fictional Caribbean island of Lantanacamara, Mootoo has created a cast of remarkable characters capable of charming the reader. Narrated in part by Tyler, a young male nurse at a home for the elderly, Cereus begins with Mala's admission to the alms house in Paradise--the main city on Lantanacamara--under a cloud of mystery. The old lady won't speak and is suspected of a multitude of crimes, causing the head nurse of the home to keep her in restraints. Only Tyler is willing to care for her; it isn't long before Tyler, an outcast in Paradise because of his sexual orientation, and Mala, a pariah for other reasons, develop an unusual friendship.
For the first half of the book, Mootoo moves easily between Tyler's narrative and a third-person account of Mala's life as a child. The chapters covering the adoption of Mala's father, Chandin Ramchandin, by a white missionary and his wife and Chandin's obsession with his foster sister, Lavinia, offer a telling perspective on race and colonialism; later chapters detailing Chandin's descent into alcoholism, madness, and child abuse are occasionally overwrought, but the strong, child's-eye point of view of young Mala keeps the novel grounded. The second half of Cereus abandons both Tyler and the omniscient narrator, choosing to focus, instead, on Otoh Mohanty, the son of Mala's childhood friend, Boyie. Here Mootoo also introduces, for the first time, elements of the fantastic: a girl who "wills" herself to become a boy; a man who sleeps for weeks at a time, only waking one day each month; a mysterious, locked room that holds a horrifying secret. The result is pure melodrama wrapped up in lovely prose.
Even though the last half of the book seems too suddenly freighted towards the magical and improbable, and the happy ending is a trifle too contrived, Cereus Blooms at Night showcases Shani Mootoo's impressive mastery of language. And in Mala Ramchandin, she has created a tough and tender heroine who commands the reader's interest and sympathy from first page to last. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of Cereus Blooms at Night:
- Cereus Blooms at Night: ISBN 0771064004 (0-7710-6400-4)
Softcover, McClelland & Stewart Ltd - Cereus Blooms at Night: ISBN 088974064X (0-88974-064-X)
Softcover, Press Gang Pub - Cereus Blooms at Night: ISBN 0802116337 (0-8021-1633-7)
Hardcover, Grove Pr - Cereus Blooms at Night: ISBN 0380731991 (0-380-73199-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
- Cereus Blooms at Night: ISBN 0771064004 (0-7710-6400-4)
Desirable Daughtersby Bharati MukherjeeISBN 0786885157 (0-7868-8515-7)
Softcover, Hyperion Books
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Don't Leave Home: Migration and the Chineseby Wang GungwuISBN 9812102426 (981-210-242-6)
Softcover, Marshall Cavendish Intl
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An Equal Musicby Vikram SethISBN 037570924X (0-375-70924-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'An Equal Music'Book summary:The violinist hero of Vikram Seth's third novel would very much like to be hearing secret harmonies. Instead, living in London 10 years after a key disaster, Michael Holme is easily irritated by his beautiful young (and even French!) girlfriend and by his colleagues in the Maggiore Quartet. In short, he's fed up with playing second fiddle in life and art. Yet a chance encounter with Julia, the pianist he had loved and lost in Vienna, brings Michael sudden bliss. Her situation, however--and the secret that may end her career--threatens to undo the lovers.
An Equal Music is a fraction of the size of Seth's A Suitable Boy, but is still deliciously expansive. In under 400 pages, the author offers up exquisite complexities, personal and lyrical, while deftly fielding any fears that he's composed a Harlequin for highbrows. During one emotional crescendo, Michael tells Julia, "I don't know how I've lived without you all these years," only to realize, "how feeble and trite my words sound to me, as if they have been plucked out of some housewife fantasy." In addition to the pitch of its love story, one of the book's joys lies in Seth's creation of musical extremes. As the Maggiore rehearses, moving from sniping and impatience to perfection, the author expertly notates the joys of collaboration, trust, and creation. "It's the weirdest thing, a quartet," one member remarks. "I don't know what to compare it to. A marriage? a firm? a platoon under fire? a self-regarding, self-destructive priesthood? It has so many different tensions mixed in with its pleasures."
An Equal Music is a novel in which the length of Schubert's Trout Quintet matters deeply, the discovery of a little-known Beethoven opus is a miracle, and each instrument has its own being. Just as Michael can't hope to possess Julia, he cannot even dream of owning his beloved Tononi, the violin he has long had only on loan. And it goes without saying that Vikram Seth knows how to tell a tale, keeping us guessing about everything from what the Quartet's four-minute encore will be to what really occasioned Julia's departure from Michael's life. (Or was it in fact Michael who abandoned Julia?) As this love story ranges from London to Michael's birthplace in the north of England to Vienna to Venice, few readers will remain deaf to its appeals. --Kerry Fried [via]
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Fine Balanceby Rohinton MistryISBN 140003065X (1-4000-3065-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fine Balance'Book summary:A fiction work by Rohinto Mistry and published by McClelland & Stewart Ltd in Canada in 1995. In paperback format, it has 822 pages. [via]
More editions of Fine Balance:
- Fine Balance: ISBN 0571203620 (0-571-20362-0)
Softcover, Faber & Faber Ltd - Fine Balance: ISBN 0771034806 (0-7710-3480-6)
Softcover, McClelland & Stewart Ltd - Fine Balance: ISBN 0679776451 (0-679-77645-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc - A Fine Balance : A Novel: ISBN 0375414819 (0-375-41481-9)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group - Fine Balance: ISBN 0679446087 (0-679-44608-7)
Hardcover, Random House Inc - Fine Balance: ISBN 140003065X (1-4000-3065-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
- Fine Balance: ISBN 0571203620 (0-571-20362-0)
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Georges Woke Up Laughing: Long-Distance Nationalism and the Search for Homeby Schiller, Nina, Glick, Georges Eugene FouronISBN 0822327910 (0-8223-2791-0)
Softcover, Duke Univ Pr
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The Glass Palaceby Amitav GhoshISBN 0375758771 (0-375-75877-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Glass Palace'Book summary:Rajkumar is only a boy, helping out on a market stall in the dusty square outside the royal palace in Mandalay, when the British force the Burmese King, Queen and court into exile. He is rescued by a far-seeing Chinese merchant and with him builds up a great logging business in upper Burma. But haunted by his vision of the Royal Family and one of their attendants, he journeys to the obscure town in India where they have been exiled, and his family and friends become inextricably linked with theirs. Through the lives of the wider family and connections, an extraordinary story of this century is told: in Malaya, amid the vast rubber plantations, in India, among the growing nationalist feeling, in America where ideas of democracy and terrorist action, as well as business acumen, could be learnt. By the time World War II arrives, Rajkumar - who had made and lost several fortunes -has spread his family and influence from the great estate at Morningside where his son will be involved in the British collapse in Singapore, and one of his relations in the remarkable rebellion of the Indian troops against their British officers. Another of the great characters, the formidable Indian widow, Uma, becomes a spearhead of the Indian nationalist movement and provides a final refuge for the battered remnants of the family as they flee from Burma before the Japanese advance in a horrifying trek across appalling terrain. And it is his grand-daughter who survives that experience who brings the readers back to contemporary Burma, and completes the circle of the family started so long ago in Mandalay. Amitav Ghosh, author of "The Calcutta Chromosome" and "The Shadow Lives", makes his great cast of characters live in readers' minds, and peoples and illuminates the extraordinary, turbulent history of the Burmese over the last 100 years. [via]
Heat and Dustby Ruth Prawer JhabvalaISBN 1582430152 (1-58243-015-2)
Softcover, Counterpoint
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Heat and Dust'Book summary:Specially selected by Maura Healy, this series aims to offer an innovative and adventurous collection of texts that demonstrates the best of women's writing, both black and white. Complete texts reflecting a range of genres as well as different cultures and experiences are offered and the volumes contain study material and assignments at a range of levels to deepen pupils' enjoyment and understanding of literature. A reading log is also included with ideas for group and individual assignments to help pupils find their way around the texts. This story is about Olivia who, beloved by her dull husband and bored with her lifestyle in the small Indian town of Satipur, embarks on an affair with the glamorous but dangerous local prince. Many years later her step-granddaughter goes back to Satipur to find out the truth about the scandalous events which put Olivia outside the bands of conventional society. The series is intended for 14-16 year olds sitting GCSE English and English Literature and adults taking English examinations and overseas students. It is suitable for those taking GCSE-LEAG, NEA, SEG and MEG examinations. [via]
More editions of Heat and Dust:
- Heat and Dust: ISBN 0671646575 (0-671-64657-5)
Softcover, Touchstone Books - Heat and Dust: ISBN 0060806419 (0-06-080641-9)
Softcover, Harper & Row - Heat and Dust: ISBN 0060121971 (0-06-012197-1)
Hardcover, Harpercollins - Heat and Dust: ISBN 0719534011 (0-7195-3401-1)
Hardcover, J. Murray - Heat and Dust: ISBN 1582430152 (1-58243-015-2)
Softcover, Counterpoint
- Heat and Dust: ISBN 0671646575 (0-671-64657-5)
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The Hungry Tideby Amitav GhoshISBN 061871166X (0-618-71166-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hungry Tide'Book summary:The new novel from the author of The Glass Palace, the widely-acclaimed bestseller. The Hungry Tide is a rich, exotic saga set in Calcutta and in the vast archipelago of islands in the Bay of Bengal. An Indian myth says that when the river Ganges first descended from the heavens, the force of the cascade was so great that the earth would have been destroyed if it had not been for the god Shiva, who tamed the torrent by catching it in his dreadlocks. It is only when the Ganges approaches the Bay of Bengal that it frees itself and separates into thousands of wandering strands. The result is the Sundarbans, an immense stretch of mangrove forest, a half-drowned land where the waters of the Himalayas merge with the incoming tides of the sea. It is this vast archipelago of islands that provides the setting for Amitav Ghosh's new novel. In the Sundarbans the tides reach more than 100 miles inland and every day thousands of hectares of forest disappear only to re-emerge hours later. Dense as the mangrove forests are, from a human point of view it is only a little less barren than a desert. There is a terrible, vengeful beauty here, a place teeming with crocodiles, snakes, sharks and man-eating tigers. This is the only place on earth where man is more often prey than predator. And it is into this terrain that an eccentric, wealthy Scotsman named Daniel Hamilton tried to create a utopian society, of all races and religions, and conquer the might of the Sundarbans. In January 2001, a small ship arrives to conduct an ecological survey of this vast but little-known environment, and the scientists on board begin to trace the journeys of the descendants of this society. [via]
The In-Between World Of Vikram Lallby M. G. VassanjiISBN 1400076560 (1-4000-7656-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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India Abroad: Diasporic Cultures of Postwar America and Englandby Sandhya Rajendra ShuklaISBN 0691092672 (0-691-09267-2)
Softcover, Princeton Univ Pr
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Interpreter of Maladies: Library Editionby Jhumpa Lahiri, Janet SilverISBN 039592720X (0-395-92720-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Interpreter of Maladies: Library Edition'Book summary:Mr. Kapasi, the protagonist of Jhumpa Lahiri's title story, would certainly have his work cut out for him if he were forced to interpret the maladies of all the characters in this eloquent debut collection. Take, for example, Shoba and Shukumar, the young couple in "A Temporary Matter" whose marriage is crumbling in the wake of a stillborn child. Or Miranda in "Sexy," who is involved in a hopeless affair with a married man. But Mr. Kapasi has problems enough of his own; in addition to his regular job working as an interpreter for a doctor who does not speak his patients' language, he also drives tourists to local sites of interest. His fare on this particular day is Mr. and Mrs. Das--first-generation Americans of Indian descent--and their children. During the course of the afternoon, Mr. Kapasi becomes enamored of Mrs. Das and then becomes her unwilling confidant when she reads too much into his profession. "I told you because of your talents," she informs him after divulging a startling secret.
I'm tired of feeling so terrible all the time. Eight years, Mr. Kapasi, I've been in pain eight years. I was hoping you could help me feel better; say the right thing. Suggest some kind of remedy.
Of course, Mr. Kapasi has no cure for what ails Mrs. Das--or himself. Lahiri's subtle, bittersweet ending is characteristic of the collection as a whole. Some of these nine tales are set in India, others in the United States, and most concern characters of Indian heritage. Yet the situations Lahiri's people face, from unhappy marriages to civil war, transcend ethnicity. As the narrator of the last story, "The Third and Final Continent," comments: "There are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept." In that single line Jhumpa Lahiri sums up a universal experience, one that applies to all who have grown up, left home, fallen in or out of love, and, above all, experienced what it means to be a foreigner, even within one's own family. --Alix Wilber [via]More editions of Interpreter of Maladies: Library Edition:
- Interpreter of Maladies: Library Edition: ISBN 0613257200 (0-613-25720-0)
Hardcover, Bt Bound - Interpreter of Maladies: Library Edition: ISBN 0618101365 (0-618-10136-5)
Hardcover, Houghton Mifflin - Interpreter of Maladies: Library Edition: ISBN 0786264349 (0-7862-6434-9)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr - Interpreter of Maladies: Library Edition: ISBN 039592720X (0-395-92720-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
- Interpreter of Maladies: Library Edition: ISBN 0613257200 (0-613-25720-0)
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Madras On Rainy Daysby Samina AliISBN 0312423306 (0-312-42330-6)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Madras On Rainy Days'Book summary:"A lyrical debut" Asian Week exploring the dilemma confronting Layla, a second generation Indian-American Muslim. As a dutiful Muslim daughter and an independent young American, Layla is torn between clashing identities. Reluctantly agreeing to her parents' wish for her to leave America and submit to an arranged marriage, Layla enters into the closed world of tradition and ritual as the wedding preparations get underway in Hyderabad. Set against a background of rising Hindu-Muslim violence, and taboo questions of sexuality, Samina Ali presents the complexities of life behind the chador, and the story of a marriage where no one is what they seem. In the words of the San Francisco Chronicle, Madras on Rainy Days introduces an "abundantly talented new voice." [via]
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The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Loveby Oscar HijuelosISBN 0060955457 (0-06-095545-7)
Softcover, Perennial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love'Book summary:Inspired by their heroes Xavier Cugat and Desi Arnaz, brothers Cesar and Nestor Castillo come to New York City from Cuba in 1949 with designs on becoming mambo stars. Eventually they do--performing with Arnaz on "I Love Lucy" in 1955 and recording 78s with their own band, the Mambo Kings. In his second novel, Hijuelos traces the lives of the flashy, guitar-strumming Cesar and the timid, lovelorn Nestor as they cruise the East Coast club circuit in a flamingo-pink bus. Enriching the story are the brothers' friends and family members--all driven by their own private dreams. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love won a Pulitzer Prize in 1990. [via]
More editions of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love:
- The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love: ISBN 0060973277 (0-06-097327-7)
Softcover, Harpercollins - The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love: ISBN 0374201250 (0-374-20125-0)
Hardcover, Farrar, Straus & Giroux - The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love: ISBN 0060845309 (0-06-084530-9)
Softcover, Perennial - The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love: ISBN 0060974516 (0-06-097451-6)
Softcover, Harpercollins - The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love: ISBN 0060955457 (0-06-095545-7)
Softcover, Perennial
- The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love: ISBN 0060973277 (0-06-097327-7)
The Mistress of Spicesby Chitra Banerjee DivakaruniISBN 0385482388 (0-385-48238-8)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mistress of Spices'Book summary:On a mythic island of women "where on our skin, the warm rain fell like pomegranate seeds" powerful spices like cinnamon, turmeric, and fenugreek whisper their secrets to young acolytes. Ordained after trial by fire, each new spice mistress is sent to a far-off land to cure the life pains of all Indian seekers, while keeping a cool distance from the mortals. Only stubborn, passionate Tilo, disguised as an old woman merchant in present-day Oakland, California, fails to heed the vengeful spices' warnings. Fragrant with spice and sensuality, this winning tale rolls off the tongue. Written in the soaring, poetic tradition of China Men and Haroun and the Sea of Stories. [via]
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The Namesakeby Jhumpa LahiriISBN 0618485228 (0-618-48522-8)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Namesake'Book summary:Any talk of The Namesake--Jhumpa Lahiri's follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning debut, Interpreter of Maladies--must begin with a name: Gogol Ganguli. Born to an Indian academic and his wife, Gogol is afflicted from birth with a name that is neither Indian nor American nor even really a first name at all. He is given the name by his father who, before he came to America to study at MIT, was almost killed in a train wreck in India. Rescuers caught sight of the volume of Nikolai Gogol's short stories that he held, and hauled him from the train. Ashoke gives his American-born son the name as a kind of placeholder, and the awkward thing sticks.
Awkwardness is Gogol's birthright. He grows up a bright American boy, goes to Yale, has pretty girlfriends, becomes a successful architect, but like many second-generation immigrants, he can never quite find his place in the world. There's a lovely section where he dates a wealthy, cultured young Manhattan woman who lives with her charming parents. They fold Gogol into their easy, elegant life, but even here he can find no peace and he breaks off the relationship. His mother finally sets him up on a blind date with the daughter of a Bengali friend, and Gogol thinks he has found his match. Moushumi, like Gogol, is at odds with the Indian-American world she inhabits. She has found, however, a circuitous escape: "At Brown, her rebellion had been academic ... she'd pursued a double major in French. Immersing herself in a third language, a third culture, had been her refuge--she approached French, unlike things American or Indian, without guilt, or misgiving, ore expectation of any kind." Lahiri documents these quiet rebellions and random longings with great sensitivity. There's no cleverness or showing-off in The Namesake, just beautifully confident storytelling. Gogol's story is neither comedy nor tragedy; it's simply that ordinary, hard-to-get-down-on-paper commodity: real life. --Claire Dederer [via]
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The Nature of Passionby Ruth Prawer JhabvalaISBN 0671683381 (0-671-68338-1)
Softcover, Simon & Schuster
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The Ophiuchi Hotlineby John VarleyISBN 0441634842 (0-441-63484-2)
Softcover, Berkley Pub Group
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Promised Lands: Modernity, Utopia and Emancipation in the Black Atlanticby Paul GilroyISBN 0860916758 (0-86091-675-8)
Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Promised Lands: Modernity, Utopia and Emancipation in the Black Atlantic'Book summary:This text sketches a critical account of the location of black intellectuals in the modern world following the end of racial slavery. The book explores the reactions of black writers to modernity's colour-coded promises, demonstrating the value of a politicized post-modernism in re-reading black cultural politics and political culture. The lives and writings of key African Americans such as Martin Delany, W.E.B. Dubois, Frederick Douglas and Richard Wright are examined in the light of their experiences outside the US in Europe and Africa. Gilroy provides an extensive discussion of black vernacular cultures, especially music. Moving beyond debates about modernity that confine it to Europe, "Promised Lands" views the black Atlantic as a transnational alternative to black political theory based, often by default, on conceptions of the nation imported from European letters. The black Atlantic is a hetero-cultural formation in which routes count for as much as roots and travelling and displacement are more usual than permanent fixity. This text should be of interest to students and teachers of English Cultural Studies and African and American Studies, as Gilroy presents a thorough indictment of their institutionalized ethnocentrism and inability to see beyond the structures of cultural nationalism and the borders of the nation state. [via]
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Queen Of Dreamsby Chitra Banerjee DivakaruniISBN 1400030447 (1-4000-3044-7)
Softcover, Anchor Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Queen Of Dreams'Book summary:Rakhi, a young artist and divorced mother living in Berkeley, California, is struggling to keep her footing with her family and with a world in alarming transition. Her mother is a dream teller, born with the ability to share and interpret the dreams of others. This gift fascinates Rakhi but also isolates her from her mother's past. Rakhi's solace comes in the discovery, after her mother's death, of her dream journals, which open the long-closed door to her past.
Available only in Wheeler Hardcover 6. [via]
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Shadow Linesby Amitav GhoshISBN 061832996X (0-618-32996-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shadow Lines'Book summary:one of the most important novels we have carried. used widely as text. covers India, c. 1940s and 50s, communalism, nationalism, classic [via]
More editions of Shadow Lines:
- Shadow Lines: ISBN 0140118357 (0-14-011835-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group USA - Shadow Lines: ISBN 0195636317 (0-19-563631-7)
Softcover, South Asia Books - Shadow Lines: ISBN 002516001X (0-02-516001-X)
Hardcover, South Asia Books - Shadow Lines: ISBN 0670826332 (0-670-82633-2)
Hardcover, Viking - Shadow Lines: ISBN 8175300434 (81-7530-043-4)
Softcover, South Asia Books - Shadow Lines: ISBN 061832996X (0-618-32996-X)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
- Shadow Lines: ISBN 0140118357 (0-14-011835-7)
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Sister of My Heartby Chitra Banerjee DivakaruniISBN 038548951X (0-385-48951-X)
Softcover, Bantam Dell Pub Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sister of My Heart'Book summary:From the award-winning author of Mistress of Spices, the bestselling novel about the extraordinary bond between two women, and the family secrets and romantic jealousies that threaten to tear them apart.Anju is the daughter of an upper-caste Calcutta family of distinction. Her cousin Sudha is the daughter of the black sheep of that same family. Sudha is startlingly beautiful; Anju is not. Despite those differences, since the day on which the two girls were born, the same day their fathers died--mysteriously and violently--Sudha and Anju have been sisters of the heart. Bonded in ways even their mothers cannot comprehend, the two girls grow into womanhood as if their fates as well as their hearts were merged. But, when Sudha learns a dark family secret, that connection is shattered. For the first time in their lives, the girls know what it is to feel suspicion and distrust. Urged into arranged marriages, Sudha and Anju's lives take opposite turns. Sudha becomes the dutiful daughter-in-law of a rigid small-town household. Anju goes to America with her new husband and learns to live her own life of secrets. When tragedy strikes each of them, however, they discover that despite distance and marriage, they have only each other to turn to. Set in the two worlds of San Francisco and India, this exceptionally moving novel tells a story at once familiar and exotic, seducing readers from the first page with the lush prose we have come to expect from Divakaruni. Sister of My Heart is a novel destined to become as widely beloved as it is acclaimed. [via]
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Small Islandby Andrea LevyISBN 0312424671 (0-312-42467-1)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Small Island'Book summary:Andrea Levy's award-winning novel, Small Island, deftly brings two bleak families into crisp focus. First a Jamaican family, including the well-intentioned Gilbert, who can never manage to say or do exactly the right thing; Romeo Michael, who leaves a wake of women in his path; and finally, Hortense, whose primness belies her huge ambition to become English in every way possible. The other unhappy family is English, starting with Queenie, who escapes the drudgery of being a butcher's daughter only to marry a dull banker. As the chapters reverse chronology and the two groups collide and finally mesh, the book unfolds through time like a photo album, and Levy captures the struggle between class, race, and sex with a humor and tenderness that is both authentic and bracing. The book is cinematic in the best way--lighting up London's bombed-out houses and wartime existence with clarity and verve while never losing her character's voice or story. --Meg Halverson [via]
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Story-Wallahby Shyam SelvaduraiISBN 0618576800 (0-618-57680-0)
Softcover, Houghton Mifflin
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Story-Wallah'Book summary:Writers of South Asian descent have been garnering more and more success, acclaim, and attention. Story-Wallah gathers the finest South Asian voices in fiction for the first time in a single volume. As Shyam Selvadurai writes in his introduction, "The stories jostle up against each other . . . The effect is a marvelous cacophony that reminds me of . . . one of those South Asian bazaars, a bargaining, carnival-like milieu. The goods on sale in this instance being stories hawked by story-traders: story-wallahs." In this book, some of the world's best fiction writers hawk their wares from different parts of the South Asian diaspora -- Sri Lanka, India, the United States, Great Britain, Guyana, Malaysia, Trinidad, Fiji -- creating a virtual map of the world with their tales. These stories explore universal themes of identity, culture, and home, and Story-Wallah includes a rich array of experiences: a honeymoon in Sri Lanka, the trials of a Bangladeshi refugee in England, life on a sugar plantation in Trinidad, the attempts of an Indian family to arrange a marriage for their rebellious daughter.[via]
This anthology is essential reading for anyone with an interest in South Asian writers and the dynamic, important tales they have to tell.More editions of Story-Wallah:
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A Suitable Boyby Vikram SethISBN 0060786523 (0-06-078652-3)
Softcover, Perennial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Suitable Boy'Book summary:Vikram Seth's novel is, at its core, a love story: the tale of Lata's--and her mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra's--attempts to find a suitable boy for Lata, through love or through exacting maternal appraisal. Set in the early 1950s in an India newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis, A Suitable Boy takes us into the richly imagined world of four large extended families and spins a compulsively readable tale of their lives and loves. A sweeping panoramic portrait of a complex, multiethnic society in flux, A Suitable Boy remains the story of ordinary people caught up in a web of love and ambition, humor and sadness, prejudice and reconciliation, the most delicate social etiquette and the most appalling violence. [via]
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There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nationby Paul GilroyISBN 0226294277 (0-226-29427-7)
Softcover, Univ of Chicago Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation'Book summary:Gilroy demonstrates the enormous complexity of racial politics in England today. Exploring the relationships among race, class, and nation as they have evolved over the past twenty years, he highlights racist attitudes that transcend the left-right political divide. He challenges current sociological approaches to racism as well as the ethnocentric bias of British cultural studies.[via]
"Gilroy demonstrates effectively that cultural traditions are not static, but develop, grow and indeed mutate, as they influence and are influenced by the other changing traditions around them."David Edgar, Listener Review of Books.
"A fascinating analysis of the discourses that have accompanied black settlement in Britain. . . . An important addition to the stock of critical works on race and culture."David Okuefuna, Chicago TribuneMore editions of There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation:
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The Voices of Marrakeshby Elias Canetti, J. A. UnderwoodISBN 0714525804 (0-7145-2580-4)
Softcover, Marion Boyars
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Voices of Marrakesh'Book summary:[via]Winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize for Literature, Elias Canetti uncovers the secret life hidden beneath Marrakeshs bewildering array of voices, gestures and faces. In a series of sharply etched scenes, he portrays the languages and cultures of the people who fill its bazaars, cafes, and streets. The book presents vivid images of daily life: the storytellers in the Djema el Fna, the armies of beggars ready to set upon the unwary, and the rituals of Moroccan family life. This is Marrakesh -described by one of Europes major literary intellects in an account lauded as "cosmopolitan in the tradition of Goethe" by the New York Times. "A unique travel book," according to John Bayley of the London Review of Books.
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White Teeth: Reader's Companionby Zadie SmithISBN 1568959508 (1-56895-950-8)
Hardcover, Wheeler Pub Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'White Teeth: Reader's Companion'Book summary:Epic in scale and intimate in approach, White Teeth is a formidably ambitious debut. First novelist Zadie Smith takes on race, sex, class, history, and the minefield of gender politics, and such is her wit and inventiveness that these weighty subjects seem effortlessly light. She also has an impressive geographical range, guiding the reader from Jamaica to Turkey to Bangladesh and back again.
Still, the book's home base is a scrubby North London borough, where we encounter Smith's unlikely heroes: prevaricating Archie Jones and intemperate Samad Iqbal, who served together in the so-called Buggered Battalion during World War II. In the ensuing decades, both have gone forth and multiplied: Archie marries beautiful, bucktoothed Clara--who's on the run from her Jehovah's Witness mother--and fathers a daughter. Samad marries stroppy Alsana, who gives birth to twin sons. Here is multiculturalism in its most elemental form: "Children with first and last names on a direct collision course. Names that secrete within them mass exodus, cramped boats and planes, cold arrivals, medical checks."
Big questions demand boldly drawn characters. Zadie Smith's aren't heroic, just real: warm, funny, misguided, and entirely familiar. Reading their conversations is like eavesdropping. Even a simple exchange between Alsana and Clara about their pregnancies has a comical ring of truth: "A woman has to have the private things--a husband needn't be involved in body business, in a lady's... parts." And the men, of course, have their own involvement in bodily functions:
The deal was this: on January 1, 1980, like a New Year dieter who gives up cheese on the condition that he can have chocolate, Samad gave up masturbation so that he might drink. It was a deal, a business proposition, that he had made with God: Samad being the party of the first part, God being the sleeping partner. And since that day Samad had enjoyed relative spiritual peace and many a frothy Guinness with Archibald Jones; he had even developed the habit of taking his last gulp looking up at the sky like a Christian, thinking: I'm basically a good man.
Not all of White Teeth is so amusingly carnal. The mixed blessings of assimilation, for example, are an ongoing torture for Samad as he watches his sons grow up. "They have both lost their way," he grumbles. "Strayed so far from what I had intended for them. No doubt they will both marry white women called Sheila and put me in an early grave." These classic immigrant fears--of dilution and disappearance--are no laughing matter. But in the end, they're exactly what gives White Teeth its lasting power and undeniable bite. --Eithne Farry [via]More editions of White Teeth: Reader's Companion:
- White Teeth: Reader's Companion: ISBN 0375703861 (0-375-70386-1)
Softcover, Alfred a Knopf Inc - White Teeth: Reader's Companion: ISBN 024113997X (0-241-13997-X)
Softcover, Hamish Hamilton - White Teeth: A Novel: ISBN 0375501851 (0-375-50185-1)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group - White Teeth: Reader's Companion: ISBN 1568959508 (1-56895-950-8)
Hardcover, Wheeler Pub Inc
- White Teeth: Reader's Companion: ISBN 0375703861 (0-375-70386-1)
Spanish
Interprete De Emociones / Interpreter of Maladiesby Jhumpa Lahiri, Antonio PadillaISBN 848453961X (84-8453-961-X)
Softcover, Planeta Pub Corp
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Los Reyes Del Mambo Tocan Canciones De Amorby Oscar HijuelosISBN 0060952148 (0-06-095214-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Los Reyes Del Mambo Tocan Canciones De Amor'More editions of Los Reyes Del Mambo Tocan Canciones De Amor:
Italian
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Denti Bianchi / White Teethby Zadie SmithISBN 8804498749 (88-04-49874-9)
Softcover, Mondadori
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Denti Bianchi / White Teeth'More editions of Denti Bianchi / White Teeth:
German
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Zähne zeigenby Zadie SmithISBN 342662141X (3-426-62141-X)
Softcover
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Zähne zeigen'Book summary:Zähne zeigen, monumental im Ausmaß und intim im Ansatz, ist ein ehrgeiziger Roman. Seine Themen drehen sich um Herkunft, Religion, Geschlechterbeziehungen, Hautfarbe, gesellschaftliche Stellung und Geschichte, aber Zadie Smith ist mit einem Witz und einem Einfallsreichtum gesegnet, die diese gewichtigen Ideen mühelos leicht erscheinen lassen.
Die Handlung führt uns nach Jamaika, die Türkei, Bangladesch und Indien und bringt uns schließlich in einen schäbigen Vorort von North London, in dem die zwei merkwürdigen Helden dieses Buches zu Hause sind: Archie Jones, der es mit der Wahrheit nicht so genau nimmt, und Samad Iqbal, der im hohen Maße dem Alkohol zuspricht. Sie begegneten sich erstmals im Zweiten Weltkrieg als Mitglieder eines vom Pech verfolgten Bataillons und sind seitdem unzertrennlich. Archie heiratet die schöne Clara mit den vorstehenden Zähnen, die sich auf der Flucht vor ihrer Mutter befindet, einer Zeugin Jehovas, und mit der er eine Tochter hat, Irie. Samad heiratet die pampige Alsana, die ihm zwei stramme Jungs schenkt -- Zwillinge: "Kinder mit Vor- und Zunamen, die sich auf direktem Kollisionskurs befinden; Namen, hinter denen sich Massenexodus, überfüllte Boote und Flugzeuge, unfreundliche Ankünfte und ärztliche Untersuchungen verbergen."
Große Fragen verlangen nach kühn gezeichneten Charakteren. Zadie Smiths Helden sind nicht heroisch; sie sind einfach echt: warmherzig, komisch, fehlgeleitet und absolut vertraut. Wenn man ihre Unterhaltungen liest, kommt man sich vor, als würde man sie heimlich belauschen. In einer ganz einfachen Szene unterhalten sich Alsana und Clara im Park über ihre Schwangerschaften: "Eine Frau muss ihre privaten Dinge haben -- ein Ehemann sollte sich nicht in die körperlichen Angelegenheiten einmischen, in den Intimbereich einer Frau."
Samad ist verärgert über seine Söhne: "Sie sind beide vom Weg abgekommen; so weit weg von dem, was ich für sie geplant hatte. Es gibt wohl keinen Zweifel, dass sie beide irgendwann weiße Frauen heiraten werden, die Sheila heißen, und mich früh unter die Erde bringen." Hier spiegeln sich "die Ängste des Einwanderers -- Identitätsverlust, Auflösung" -- deutlich wider, die Samad mehr als alles andere geprägt haben.
Die Lektüre von Zähne zeigen ist eine wahre Freude. In diesem Buch wimmelt es vor Leben und Überschwänglichkeit, und doch besitzt es genug Schläue und despektierliche Seriosität, um ihm eine gewisse Bissigkeit zu geben. --Eithne Farry [via]
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