Samskara (Paperback)

U.R. Ananthamurthy

ISBN 10: 1590179129 / ISBN 13: 9781590179123

Published by New York Review Books, New York, 2017

About this Item

Paperback. Samskara is one of the acknowledged masterpieces of modern world literature, a book to set beside Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart and Tayeb Salihs Season of Migration to the North. Taking its name from a Sanskrit word that means rite of passage but also moment of recognition, it begins when Naranappa, an inhabitant of a small south Indian town and a renegade Brahmin who has scandalously flouted the rules of caste and purity for years, eating meat, drinking alcohol, marrying beneath him, mocking God, unexpectedly falls ill and dies. The question of whether he should be buried as a Brahmin divides the other Brahmins in the village. For an answer they turn to Praneshacharyah, the most devout and respected member of their community, an ascetic who also tends religiously to his invalid wife. Praneshacharyah finds himself unable to provide the answer, though an answer is urgently needed since as he wonders and the villagers wait and the body festers, more and more people are falling sick and dying. But when Praneshacharyah goes to the temple to seek a sign from God, he discovers something else entirelyunless that something else is also God. Samskara is a tale of existential suspense, a life-and-death encounter between the sacred and the profane, the pure and the impure, the ascetic and the erotic. "Originally published in English in 1976 by Oxford University Press India and reprinted here by arrangement with the publisher"--Title page verso. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781590179123

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Samskara (Paperback)
• Publisher: New York Review Books, New York
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1590179129
• ISBN 13: 9781590179123
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Samskara is one of the acknowledged masterpieces of modern world literature, a book to set beside Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North. Taking its name from a Sanskrit word that means "rite of passage" but also "moment of recognition," it begins when Naranappa, an inhabitant of a small south Indian town and a renegade Brahmin who has scandalously flouted the rules of caste and purity for years, eating meat, drinking alcohol, marrying beneath him, mocking God, unexpectedly falls ill and dies. The question of whether he should be buried as a Brahmin divides the other Brahmins in the village. For an answer they turn to Praneshacharyah, the most devout and respected member of their community, an ascetic who also tends religiously to his invalid wife.

Praneshacharyah finds himself unable to provide the answer, though an answer is urgently needed since as he wonders and the villagers wait and the body festers, more and more people are falling sick and dying. But when Praneshacharyah goes to the temple to seek a sign from God, he discovers something else entirely--unless that something else is also God.

Samskara is a tale of existential suspense, a life-and-death encounter between the sacred and the profane, the pure and the impure, the ascetic and the erotic.

About the Author

U.R. Ananthamurthy (1932-2014) was a novelist, short-story writer, poet, playwright, and literary critic. He was one of India's most celebrated modern writers, a recipient of the Jnanpith Award (India's foremost literary prize), and an important representative of the New Movement in Kannada-language literature.

A.K. Ramanujan (1929-1993) was born Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan in Mysore, India. He is a poet in English and Kannada, a translator from Kannada and Tamil, as well as a scholar, folklorist, philologist, playwright, and essayist. NYRB Poets publishes The Interior Landscape, an anthology of classical Tamil poems translated by Ramanujan.