Dancing with the River: People and Life on the Chars of South Asia

With this book Kuntala Lahiri—Dutt and Gopa Samanta offer an intimate glimpse into the microcosmic world of “hybrid environments.” Focusing on chars—the part—land, part—water, low—lying sandy masses that exist within the riverbeds in the floodplains of lower Bengal—the authors show how, both as real—life examples and as metaphors, chars straddle the conventional categories of land and water, and how p...