The Other Side of Silence: Voices of Partition - Hardcover

Butalia, Urvashi

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670878928 ISBN 13: 9780670878925

Publisher: Viking, 1997

Synopsis

Chiefly on the partition of Punjab, 1947.

About this title

Review

"[Butalia] has gone to great lengths to acquire authentic information. It is precisely for this reason that the book is gripping, especially for those who do not know much about Partition."
--Padma Ramachandran, "Masala.com"

"[Butalia] captures the emotional richness of individual tragedies and occasional heroism, and she retains and even celebrates the ambiguities and paradoxes in the memories brought to the surface. . . . [A] very worthy addition to our knowledge of partition and its consequences. Recommended for all readers."
--B. Tavakolian, "Choice"

"[An] extraordinary book . . . . [T]he 'silence' must end, so that healing and forgetting can begin. . . . Butalia has opened this largely unexplored chapter in India's history with a mix of anger and anguish that her readers will share. This is an important book. It should be required reading on both sides of the border and beyond."
--Milton Israel, "The Historian"

"[Butalia's] finely tuned sensitivity to her subjects, the degree to which she can read the silences for the stories they mute, consistently astonishes the reader with its acuity. . . . [T]he work offers a model for ethnography. . . . Throughout, what comes through ultimately is the extraordinary pain, anguish, suffering, nostalgia, and irreparable fractures that so many experienced during those violent years--and in the decades that have followed."
--Sankaran Krishna, "Theory and Event"

“This is a magnificent and necessary book, rigorous and compassionate, thought-provoking and moving. Oral history at its best.”—Salman Rushdie

“"The Other Side of Silence" is without a doubt one of the most important books ever to be written about the Partition of the Indian subcontinent. More than a history, more than a memoir, it is also an extended reflection on narrative form. Official history has always flinched from acknowledging the full extent of the human cost of Partition. Urvashi Butalia shows us why we cannot afford to forget the suffering, the grief, the pain, and the bewilderment that resulted from the division of the subcontinent. [This] is an extraordinary achievement.”—Amitav Ghosh

“Selective amnesia and memory are at the root of the relationship between human beings and their history. This book pierces that amnesia, elicits buried memories, and lays the foundations for a more evolved relationship between human beings on this subcontinent and their histories of gendered and communal violence.”—Kavita Punjabi, "Telegraph" (Calcutta)

""The Other Side of Silence" is without a doubt one of the most important books ever to be written about the Partition of the Indian subcontinent. More than a history, more than a memoir, it is also an extended reflection on narrative form. Official history has always flinched from acknowledging the full extent of the human cost of Partition. Urvashi Butalia shows us why we cannot afford to forget the suffering, the grief, the pain, and the bewilderment that resulted from the division of the subcontinent. [This] is an extraordinary achievement."--Amitav Ghosh

"This is a magnificent and necessary book, rigorous and compassionate, thought-provoking and moving. Oral history at its best."--Salman Rushdie

The Other Side of Silence is without a doubt one of the most important books ever to be written about the Partition of the Indian subcontinent. More than a history, more than a memoir, it is also an extended reflection on narrative form. Official history has always flinched from acknowledging the full extent of the human cost of Partition. Urvashi Butalia shows us why we cannot afford to forget the suffering, the grief, the pain, and the bewilderment that resulted from the division of the subcontinent. [This] is an extraordinary achievement. Amitav Ghosh"

From the Back Cover

"Selective amnesia and memory are at the root of the relationship between human beings and their history. This book pierces that amnesia, elicits buried memories, and lays the foundations for a more evolved relationship between human beings on this subcontinent and their histories of gendered and communal violence."--Kavita Punjabi, "Telegraph" (Calcutta)

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0670878928
• ISBN 13: 9780670878925
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256