Heat and Dust - Hardcover

Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer

3.55

8,153 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060121971 ISBN 13: 9780060121976

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1976

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In a narrative intermingling past and present, a young English woman journeys to India to reconstruct the behavior of her grandfather's first wife, Olivia, who left husband and friends in 1923 out of love for an Indian prince

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Review:

Praise for Heat and Dust:

"A superb book. A complex story line, handled with dazzling assurance... moving and profound. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has not only written a love story, she has also exposed the soul and nerve ends of a fascinating and compelling country. This is a book of cool, controlled brilliance. It is a jewel to be treasured." ―The Times

"Her tussle with India is one of the richest treats of contemporary literature." ―The Guardian

"A writer of genius ... a writer of world class ― a master storyteller." ―Sunday Times

"Heat and Dust is an obscure and somber novel, tense with undisclosed judgments and meanings that crouch and whisper just beyond one's reach." ―The New York Times Book Review

"Crafted with technical skill as assured as it is unobtrusive, this delicately written novel is, because of its setting and its theme of Anglo-Indian relationships, reminiscent of E.M. Forster's great novel, A Passage to India. It does not suffer by comparison." ―The Washington Post

"A penetrating and compassionate love story, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has exposed the soul and nerve ends of a fascinating and compelling country ... This is a book of cool, controlled brilliance. It is a jewel to be treasured." ―The London Times

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." ―The 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

"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

"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

"The best of Jhabvala's 'Indian' novels deserve a revival. In the meantime, her short fictions, along with Heat And Dust, are a fine introduction to the work of an unusual and gifted writer." ―The Telegraph

Book Description:

* A profound and powerful novel, winner of the Booker Prize in 1975

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