Description First published in 1961, Usha Priyamvada's debut novel Pachpan Khambe, Laal Deewaarein is located within the boundaries of an all-women's college in Delhi. Behind its walls is Sushma Sharma-lecturer, warden, single, and sole provider for her large family. Despite her relative youth and elegance, she is resigned to the regimented loneliness of her life, until a chance meeting with the charismatic Neel. Then, long-thwarted desires uncurl and the shackles she has accepted suddenly begin to seem unbearable. But the world around her is still unchanged, and independence still causes scandal... In spare, evocative prose, Fifty-five Pillars, Red Walls skilfully explores the physical, mental and social paradigms which locked so many women into narrow ideals, as they still do. Daisy Rockwell's pitch-perfect translation brings this quietly intense, poignant and pathbreaking Hindi novel into the blazing spotlight of classic Indian literature for the first time

#1 New York Times Bestseller Oprah's Book Club Selection The “extraordinary . . . monumental masterpiece” (Booklist) that changed the course of Ken Follett’s already phenomenal career—and begins where its prequel, The Evening and the Morning, ended. “Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner,” extolled Publishers Weekly on the release of The Pillars of the Earth. A departure for the bestselling thriller writer, the historical epic stunned readers and critics alike with its ambitious scope and gripping humanity. Today, it stands as a testament to Follett’s unassailable command of the written word and to his universal appeal. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known . . . of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect—a man divided in his soul . . . of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame . . . and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state and brother against brother. A spellbinding epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of twelfth-century England, this is Ken Follett’s historical masterpiece.

Following Françoise d’Eaubonne’s creation of the term “ecofeminism” in 1974, scholars around the world have explored ways that the degradation of the environment and the subjugation of women are linked. In the nearly three decades since the publication of the classical work Ecofeminism by Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva in 1993, several collections have appeared that apply ecofeminism to literary criticism, also known as feminist ecocriticism. The most recent of these include anthologies that emphasize international perspectives, furthering the comparative task launched by Mies and Shiva. To date, however, there have been no books devoted to gaining a broad-based understanding of feminist ecocriticism in India, understood in its own terms. Our new volume Indian Feminist Ecocriticism offers a survey of literature as seen through an ecofeminist lens by Indian scholars, which places contemporary literary analysis through a sampling of its diverse languages and in the context of millennia-old mythic traditions of India.

Longlisted for the Sunday Times Barry Ronge Fiction Prize Shortlisted for the 2019 Ilube Nommo Award for Best Novel Finalist for the 2019 Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science-Fiction Novel Award-winning South African novelist Imraan Coovadia tells the story of a fledgling temporal secret agent named Enver Eleven. Enver teams up with a new handler, Shanumi Six, on a vital mission to preserve humanity's legacy. In Enver Eleven's city, fair-skinned people are a rarity and have been for centuries. They work as acrobats and jugglers or apply skin-darkening creams to conceal their condition. Johannesburg is the city that survived the end of the world thanks to the shelter provided by the thousands of miles of mining tunnels running beneath it. It's Enver's job at the Agency to make sure that the end of the world doesn't come again. He and his mentor, Shanumi Six, specialize in the hot spots of the twentieth century-Marrakech, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo-where they travel in search of an elusive enemy, guided by the collective intelligence of the Agency's thinking machines which limit time travel to the bare minimum. When Shanumi vanishes on an assignment, Enver finds himself in the middle of a catastrophe which will require him to put his assumptions to the test in an atmosphere of conspiracy and intrigue.

"A towering epic to rank with Douglas Preston's Blasphemy and Michael Crichton's Prey... Pandemic drought, skyrocketing oil prices, dwindling energy supplies and wars of water scarcity threaten the planet. Only four people can prevent global chaos. Gary Morgan--a brilliant, renegade scientist is pilloried by the scientific community for his belief in a space elevator: a pillar to the sky, which he believes will make space flight fast, simple and affordable. Eva Morgan--a brilliant and beautiful scientist of Ukrainian descent, she has had a lifelong obsession to build a pillar to the sky, a vertiginous tower which would mine the power of the sun and supply humanity with cheap, limitless energy forever. Gunther Rothenberg--the ancient but revered rocket-scientist who labored at Peenemunda with von Braun to create the first rockets and continued on to build those of today. A legend, he has mentored Gary and Natalia for two decades, nurturing and encouraging their transcendent vision. Franklin Smith--the eccentric Silicon Valley billionaire who will champion their cause, wage war with Congress and government bureaucracy and most important, finance their herculean undertaking. This journey to the stars will not be easy--a tumultuous struggle filled with violence and heroism, love and death, spellbinding beauty and heartbreaking betrayal. The stakes could not be higher. Humanity's salvation will hang in the balance"--

This book analyses diasporic literatures written in Indian languages written by authors living outside their homeland and contextualize the understanding of migration and migrant identities. Examining diasporic literature produced in Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Indian Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Marathi, and Tamil, the book argues that writers in the diaspora who choose to write in their vernacular languages attempt to retain their native language, for they believe that the loss of the language would lead to the loss of their culture. The author answers seminal questions including: How are these writers different from mainstream Indian writers who write in English? Themes and issues that could be compared to or contrasted with the diasporic literatures written in English are also explored. The book offers a significant examination of the nature and dynamics of the multilingual Indian society and culture, and its global readership. It is the first book on Indian diasporic literature in Indian and transnational languages, and a pioneering contribution to the field. The book will be of interest to academics in the field of South Asian Studies, South Asian literature, Asian literature, diaspora and literary studies.

An introverted, middle-aged spinster, Roo, or Rudrakshi Sen, lives with her mother and teaches English at a local school. Roo's mother, semi-blind and a chronic invalid, lives most of the time in an imaginary world where she turns the grief of her husband's death and their bizarre relationship into the belief that theirs was a happy, conventional marriage. Roo cultivates an aloof manner and distances herself from close relationships to stave off memories of her childhood and of Eeedee, the girl who entered her life as a six-year-old and left as a teenager--after one night that was to haunt and shape both their adult lives. When Kumar, a man much younger than her, enters Roo's life out of nowhere, she is intensely attracted to him--an attraction she believes is reciprocal. She begins an affair with this mysterious stranger, knowing that all affairs end messily. It is her secrets she wants to shield. But her secrets and this man are inextricably linked... Shinie Antony's sparse yet evocative prose gives strength to this haunting tale of twisted relationships.

An analysis of the role of the protagonist is central to text interpretation. Providing examples of such analyses, the fourteen articles in this volume deal with the protagonist in mainly 20th century North Indian films and literary texts. Basically, they aim to answer two questions: what techniques have been used by the author (or director) to present a specific protagonist, and what ideas or even ideology may have inspired the author to create that character. The latter question, concerning the view of life or society that has consciously or unconsciously influenced the creator of a South Asian text or film, has occasionally been investigated in the past, too, but here answers are argued on the basis of an analysis of narrative techniques rather than an intuitive approach. Besides a historical survey of protagonists in 20th century Hindi literature, this volume offers detailed discussions of a wide variety of 'heroes' - among them children, aged men, courtesans, women fighting for Independence, and Urdu poets. The literary texts analysed here belong to various genres (novel, short story, drama, poetry), and the papers demonstrate several analytical methods, such as narratology, film analysis, feminist literary analysis, and postcolonial studies.