Out of India: Selected Stories

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Overview

Chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of 1986, this volume of stories, selected by the author from her own early work, represents the essence of her Indian experience. Bearing Jhabvala's hallmark of balance, subtlety, wry humor, and beauty, these stories present characters that prove to be as vulnerable to the contradictions and oppressions of the human heart as to those of India itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781582430522
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	12/23/1999
Edition description:	1ST COUNTE
Pages:	292
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is the author of nineteen books. She is the recipient of Booker Prize, a MacArthur fellowship, and has been honored with an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Jhabvala's screenplays for Merchant–Ivory Productions have earned two Academy Awards. Jhabvala and her husband divide their time between Delhi and New York.

Table of Contents

	Introduction: Myself in India	13
	My First Marriage	23
	The Widow	39
	The Interview	57
	A Spiritual Call	69
	Passion	89
	The Man with the Dog	107
	An Experience of India	125
	The Housewife	147
	Rose Petals	165
	Two More Under the Indian Sun	183
	Bombay	199
	On Bail	215
	In the Mountains	235
	How I Became a Holy Mother	251
	Desecration	269

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Out of India

“...There is not a shoddy line or unnecessary word here; the book has the hallmark of balance, subtlety, humor and beauty.” —New York Times Book Review

“In plain, unassuming prose that doesn't altogether conceal the tears and laughter that give it urgency, the story of many different Indias unfolds in these 15 tales... All the stories, unrelated but focusing on the search for a quiet center that justifies disjointed and woebegone lives, are woven together in a glowing tapestry enriched by profound knowledge, humor and compassion.” —Publishers Weekly

“The writing is brilliant. The reader feels the excitement of seamlessly knitted images that grow, one out of another, into a woven cloth of world.” —The Village Voice

“[A] collection of rare and exotic quality.” —Boston Herald

“These stories do not demystify India; they pay the place tributes of empathy and grace.” —Time Magazine

“Erotic, languorous tales, beautiful, haunting, finely crafted and memorably described.” —The Dallas Morning News

“These stories are well–crafted and poignant. The characters become, to use a Jhabvala image, lighted candles burning in the windows of the world.” —The Seattle Times

Praise for Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

“A writer of genius... A writer of world class—a master storyteller.” —Sunday Times

“An allusiveness, a susceptibility to mood, a tenderness to which Chekhov was the exemplar.” —V. S. Pritchett, author of Lasting Impressions

“Marvellous... each story perfectly constructed and complete.” —Jane Gardam, author of Last Friends

“Her tussle with India is one of the richest treats of contemporary literature.” —The Guardian

“Brutally honest, these stories cut straight to the heart of the matter.” —The Good Book Guide

“Seductive... intelligent and frank... Jhabvala's troubled fragments provide consolation, not in art, but in the understanding that differences between continents and cultures cannot deny the common core of human yearnings” —Times Literary Supplement

From the Publisher

....There is not a shoddy line or unnecessary word here; the book has the hallmark of balance, subtlety, humor and beauty. -- The New York Times Books of the Century

Charles McGrath