| |
 |
THE STREET SINGERS
OF LUCKNOW AND OTHER STORIES
Qurratulain Hyder
Winner of the Jnanpith Award 1989
Introduction by Aamer Hussein
Foreword by Sara Suleri
Rs. 350 Pb 2008
Forthcoming
(All rights available)
|
|
This fascinating collection of
short stories highlights the innovative genius of this
iconoclastic writer as she moves from realism to the
fabular, and from history to time-travel. In the
title story woven with social satire and melodrama,
an itinerant entertainer becomes a well-known singer,
eventually coming back to her Lucknow roots in a subdued,
melancholy ending. A cast of characters entertain themselves
with gossip and adultery in the lush tranquility of the tea
gardens of East Bengal. At the centre is a mercurial,
identity-changing adventuress, one who often appears
in her fiction. Another is the memorable Eurasian,
Catherine Bolton, who escapes her roots to achieve social
success. This versatile writer takes imaginative flight in
unusual stories spanning decades, or even centuries.
The manic comedy of Saint Flora is accompanied by a guided
tour of history with elements of the fantastic that is
distinctly her own. An American-educated Indian scientist
finds herself communicating with godlings and rabbis in ancient
Egypt. The author returns to the stark realism of fading
notions of honour, and a poignant story of a cousin who isn’t
quite One of Us written in the pseudo-memoir mode perfected
in earlier collections in which convictions of feudal Muslim
respectability are turned on their head. Her arsenal of
techniques—pastiche, satire, memoir, collage—takes
us to the place most important to her, the human heart in all
its varied seasons. |
|
QURRATULAIN HYDER
is one of Urdu's greatest fiction writers. Her
published work consists of four collections of short
stories, five novels and several novellas. She
was a journalist, scriptwriter and broadcaster
with BBC, as well as Producer Emeritus, AIR,
and copywriter for an advertising agency. She was
awarded the Padma Shri,the Sahitya Akademi Award
and the prestigious Jnanpith, in 1989, for this novel.
;
|
 |
|
|
|
|
