The Godchild

Literature & Fiction

Alter, Stephen

Contemporary

Arrow Books (A Division of Random House Group)

A loving tribute to a unique upbringing When Stephen Alter is asked the simple question Where are you from, originally? he hesitates. Although he is in almost every way an American"granted with a trace of British accent"he has an unexpected reply: My real home was in India, a hill station called Mussoorie, seven and a half thousand feet up the Himalayas. That was where I was born and raised, in a section known as Landour... It is a landscape, and a time, that haunts him still: I miss the place itself; the mountains, the view of the high Himalayas beyond Mussoorie, stretching all the way to heaven. The son and grandson of Presbytarian missionaries living in India for more than half a century, every day Alter straddled the profound boundary between utterly different peoples, cultures, languages and religions. He and his brothers spoke a pidgin dialect of Hindustani and English as young boys, fished in the rivers Song, Ganga and the Jumna, and later hunted for barking deer and ghoral in the steep foothills of the mountains always looming behind them. They studied American history but knew more about India's recent independence from England. In All the Way to Heaven, Alter writes affectionately of his family, his Indian friends and his memories exotic and mundane.

All the Way to Heaven: An American Boyhood in the Himalayas

Biographies & Memoirs

STEPHEN ALTER

Travelers & Explorers

Penguin

Travel account on the Indo-Pakistan border. a beautiful study of individuals, remembrances of the partition, current politics. a good read, with excellent reviews.

Amritsar To Lahore: Crossing The Border Between India and Pakistan

Professionals & Academics

South Asia Books

The Rataban Betrayal [Paperback] [Jan 01, 2013] STEPHEN ALTER

Metro Reads

This is an account of a journey taken in India. The destination is the source of the Ganges, the holy and most famous of Indian rivers. It is a physical journey, involving train rides across the vast plains and passages on foot far into snow-covered valleys and mountains. It is also a spiritual journey, taking a man deep into the heart and soul of the ancient religious culture of India. Stephen Alter, who was born in the Himalayan foothills, crosses many miles, and several millennia, to search for the source of Indian religion. Along the way, as he reaches one holy spot after another, meeting grounds for pilgrims, remote towns, and forgotten temples, he delves into the myths and traditions of an antique land. He explores the tales of heroic derring-do, evil and good, and recounts the great stories of death, warfare, passions, and sacred wisdom that animate the vibrant history and religious traditions of India. As every pilgrim learns, a spiritual search involves travel but ultimately returns to the inner self. Sacred Waters is a richly told narrative of a beautiful land and of a man's interior journey, and is for readers everywhere who seek to plumb their own spiritual sources.

Sacred Waters: A Pilgrimage up the Ganges River to the Source of Hindu Culture

Religion & Spirituality

Hinduism

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

Revered in Indian religion and culture, coveted for its ivory tusks, the majestic Asian elephant has captured the fascination of humans for more than four thousand years. In an effort to shed light on this regal animal and its unique relationship with humankind, author Stephen Alter traveled around the world to explore its natural home and its place in history and myth. Alter's search takes him from the depths of wildlife preserves, to a tempting elephant auction, to a dazzling festival dedicated to Ganesha the elephant-headed god. Elephas maximus is as important to modern India as it was centuries ago. Yet conservationists are fighting to preserve its endangered habitat as settlements expand, and ivory poaching has threatened generations of elephants until tuskless males may be all that survive. Charting the elephant in history, art, religion, and folklore, Alter draws a vivid, gorgeously written portrait of its past and its troubled present while offering hope for its future.

Elephas Maximus: A Portrait Of The Indian Elephant

History

Asia

Bollywood movies are glorious, colorful spectacles of romance, action, drama, song, and dance. The biggest film industry in the world, Bollywood puts out some nine hundred movies a year, which are watched by passionate fans around the globe. Stephen Alter―a writer who grew up in India and has inside access to Bollywood―acts as translator and tour guide in this firsthand look into the world of Bombay films. Following the making of a Bollywood version of Othello, he explores the enormous popularity of Hindi movies and reveals the actors, directors, musicians, and feats of artifice that make them so compelling and unique. From the blessing ceremony performed each time a movie starts shooting to the secrets behind the song- and-dance extravaganzas, Fantasies of a Bollywood Love-Thief is a beguiling introduction to the rituals and culture of a moviemaking industry so similar to and yet utterly different from our own.

Fantasies Of A Bollywood Love Thief: Inside the World of Indian Moviemaking

Dramas & Plays

Dey Street Books

Renuka

British & Irish

Andre Deutsch Ltd.

The son of a Presbyterian missionary living in the Himalayas in India soon after independence looks back on the events and exotic setting of his youth

Historical

Henry Holt Co.

"During the course of my journey, many of the people I met in Pakistan and India expressed a curious combination of affection, indifference, and animosity toward their neighbors across the border. . . . The border divides them but it is also a seam that joins the fabric of their cultures."
On 15 August 1947, in what some have argued was the final, cynical act of a collapsing empire, the British left India divided. Arbitrary borders that have profoundly affected the recent history of the subcontinent were drawn upon the map of India. In the violence that accompanied Partition, it has been estimated that close to a million people were killed and more than ten million uprooted and displaced. The hatreds created by what was one of the largest mass migrations in history only exacerbated the religious tensions that originally led to Partition. Since then, India and Pakistan have fought three devastating wars, and the danger of armed conflict is constant.
A sensitive and thoughtful look at the lasting effects of Partition on everyday people, Amritsar to Lahore describes a journey across the contested border between India and Pakistan in 1997, the fiftieth anniversary of Partition. Setting out from and then returning to New Delhi, Stephen Alter crossed the border into Pakistan, retraced the legendary route of the Frontier Mail toward the Khyber Pass, and made his return by bus along the Grand Trunk Road, stopping in major cities along the way. 
During this journey and another in 1998, Alter interviewed people from all classes and castes: Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs, men and women. In candid conversation, the older generation who lived through the events of 1947 shared their memories and opinions of that pivotal moment of Partition, while youths who have inherited the fragments of that past reflected upon the meaning of national identity. In an engaging account of peoples and places, Alter documents in evocative detail his meetings with varied individuals. He recalls the Muslim taxi driver who recognizes an air of confidence with which men in Pakistan walk the streets dressed in salwar kameez; the brigadier who saved the brass insignia of the British crown from Lord Mountbatten's Rolls Royce; gold merchants, customs officers, fellow travelers, musicians, and many others. 
Alongside these diverse and vivid interviews, chance conversations, and oral histories, Alter provides informed commentary to raise questions about national and individual identity, the territorial imperatives of history, and the insidious mythology of borders. A third-generation American in India, where he has spent much of his life, Alter reflects intimately upon India's past and present as a special observer, both insider and outsider. His meaningful encounters with people on his journey illustrate the shared culture and heritage of South Asia, as well as the hateful suspicions and intolerance that permeate throughout the India-Pakistan frontier. Also woven into the narrative are discussions of the works of South Asian novelists, poets, and filmmakers who have struggled with the issue of identity across the borderlands.
Ongoing battles in Kashmir and nuclear testing by both India and Pakistan may prove that peace in this region can be achieved only when border disputes are resolved. Offering both the perspective of hindsight and a troubling vision of the future, Amritsar to Lahore presents a compelling argument against the impenetrability of boundaries and the tragic legacy of lands divided.

Amritsar to Lahore: A Journey Across the India-Pakistan Border

University of Pennsylvania Press

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Books by Alter, Stephen