Crows of Deliverance

NIRMAL VERMA (1929-2005) was an acknowledged master of Hindi prose and one of the pioneers of the Nai Kahani (new story) movement in Hindi. Throughout his life he was known as a major voice among the Indian intelligentsia for consistently upholding the right of individual liberty and freedom of expression. He famously took a stand against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during the Emergency (1975-77), and he also advocated the cause of a Free Tibet. He traveled widely in Europe and the USA including many years in Prague, leaving after the Soviet invasion. With his fiction and also reportage for The Times of India, he earned the title "an Indian writer exiled in Europe."

Readers International published the first collection of his stories available in English outside India: The World Elsewhere and Other Stories (1988), winner of the Sahitya Akademi award. He also won the Jnanpith's Murtidevi Award for his essays, and in 1999 he received the highest literary award of India, the Bharatiya Jnanpith Award for the totality of his works, stories, novels, essays, travelogues, and translations.

The Crows of Deliverance (1991), his second collection translated into English from Readers International, touches on what he felt were key themes in his stories (from a 2002 interview):

"My works essentially deal with situations arising out of troubled relationships among the members of the same family or strained man-woman ties. Indians are very accustomed to the joint family system with strong ties of kinship. But in the last 30-40 years, increasing industrialisation and massive migration of people has taken its toll on the system. With the evolution of the nuclear family. Everyone now has to lead his own life. The disintegration of the joint family has snatched the feeling of security from individuals who now have to bear the strains and tensions alone.

"The second most important development is the emergence of an independent woman -- a woman not dependent on others but a person who has the capacity to stand on her own feet. In the past, the Indian woman has been a victim of many malpractices and injustices that were operating in our family system. The emergence of the 'new' woman has created a sort of a revolution in the network of human relationships in society and also led to peculiar tensions. These important developments in the Indian family system and society have created situations in relationships that have become central themes of my fiction."

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Crows of Deliverance

NIRMAL VERMA (1929-2005) was an acknowledged master of Hindi prose and one of the pioneers of the Nai Kahani (new story) movement in Hindi. Throughout his life he was known as a major voice among the Indian intelligentsia for consistently upholding the right of individual liberty and freedom of expression. He famously took a stand against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during the Emergency (1975-77), and he also advocated the cause of a Free Tibet. He traveled widely in Europe and the USA including many years in Prague, leaving after the Soviet invasion. With his fiction and also reportage for The Times of India, he earned the title "an Indian writer exiled in Europe."

Readers International published the first collection of his stories available in English outside India: The World Elsewhere and Other Stories (1988), winner of the Sahitya Akademi award. He also won the Jnanpith's Murtidevi Award for his essays, and in 1999 he received the highest literary award of India, the Bharatiya Jnanpith Award for the totality of his works, stories, novels, essays, travelogues, and translations.

The Crows of Deliverance (1991), his second collection translated into English from Readers International, touches on what he felt were key themes in his stories (from a 2002 interview):

"My works essentially deal with situations arising out of troubled relationships among the members of the same family or strained man-woman ties. Indians are very accustomed to the joint family system with strong ties of kinship. But in the last 30-40 years, increasing industrialisation and massive migration of people has taken its toll on the system. With the evolution of the nuclear family. Everyone now has to lead his own life. The disintegration of the joint family has snatched the feeling of security from individuals who now have to bear the strains and tensions alone.

"The second most important development is the emergence of an independent woman -- a woman not dependent on others but a person who has the capacity to stand on her own feet. In the past, the Indian woman has been a victim of many malpractices and injustices that were operating in our family system. The emergence of the 'new' woman has created a sort of a revolution in the network of human relationships in society and also led to peculiar tensions. These important developments in the Indian family system and society have created situations in relationships that have become central themes of my fiction."

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Overview

NIRMAL VERMA (1929-2005) was an acknowledged master of Hindi prose and one of the pioneers of the Nai Kahani (new story) movement in Hindi. Throughout his life he was known as a major voice among the Indian intelligentsia for consistently upholding the right of individual liberty and freedom of expression. He famously took a stand against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during the Emergency (1975-77), and he also advocated the cause of a Free Tibet. He traveled widely in Europe and the USA including many years in Prague, leaving after the Soviet invasion. With his fiction and also reportage for The Times of India, he earned the title "an Indian writer exiled in Europe."

Readers International published the first collection of his stories available in English outside India: The World Elsewhere and Other Stories (1988), winner of the Sahitya Akademi award. He also won the Jnanpith's Murtidevi Award for his essays, and in 1999 he received the highest literary award of India, the Bharatiya Jnanpith Award for the totality of his works, stories, novels, essays, travelogues, and translations.

The Crows of Deliverance (1991), his second collection translated into English from Readers International, touches on what he felt were key themes in his stories (from a 2002 interview):

"My works essentially deal with situations arising out of troubled relationships among the members of the same family or strained man-woman ties. Indians are very accustomed to the joint family system with strong ties of kinship. But in the last 30-40 years, increasing industrialisation and massive migration of people has taken its toll on the system. With the evolution of the nuclear family. Everyone now has to lead his own life. The disintegration of the joint family has snatched the feeling of security from individuals who now have to bear the strains and tensions alone.

"The second most important development is the emergence of an independent woman -- a woman not dependent on others but a person who has the capacity to stand on her own feet. In the past, the Indian woman has been a victim of many malpractices and injustices that were operating in our family system. The emergence of the 'new' woman has created a sort of a revolution in the network of human relationships in society and also led to peculiar tensions. These important developments in the Indian family system and society have created situations in relationships that have become central themes of my fiction."


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780930523800
Publisher: Readers International
Publication date: 08/20/2020
Series: 5
Pages: 196
Product dimensions: 4.89(w) x 7.78(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

NIRMAL VERMA (1929-2005) was an acknowledged master of Hindi prose and one of the pioneers of the Nai Kahani (new story) movement in Hindi. Born in Simla, a hill station locale that recurrs in his stories, he studied History at Delhi University's presitigious St Stephens College and taught for a time while also developing his writing skills. A student activist and idealist, he nevertheless regularly attended Mahatma Ghandi's morning prayer meetings in 1947-48, even though he was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of India. He resigned his Communist Party membership in protest against the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. Later in the 1950s he went to Prague and experienced the changes that culminated in the Prague Spring. He initiated an important translation program of key Czech writers to bring their works into Hindi, including Karel Čapek, Jiři Fried, Joseph Skvorecky, Milan Kundera and Bohumil Hrabal. He left Czechoslovkia and returned to India in 1968 in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion there. Throughout his life he was known as a major voice among the Indian intelligentsia for consistently upholding the right of individual liberty and freedom of expression. He famously took a stand against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during the Emergency (1975-77), and he also advocated the cause of a Free Tibet. He traveled widely in Europe and the USA from 1959 to 1970, while also reporting regularly in The Times of India, earning the title "an Indian writer exiled in Europe."

Table of Contents

Acclaim for Nirmal Verma's Stories

Introduction by Nirmal Verma: The Short Story as a Pure Literary Form

The Stories:

Amalya

The Visitor

The Gossamer

Last Summer

The Morning Walk

Deliverance

About the Author

About the Translators

About Readers International

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