It is the last year of the nineteenth century in the village of chevathar in southern india solomon dorai, the headman, is desperately trying to hold together the fraying ends of village life at a time of huge social and political unease when violence finally erupts, it takes solomon and the traditional structure of the village with itthree generations of dorais come and go in the village by the sea, winning and losing the battle for chevathar there are solomons sons: the dazzling, athletic aaron and the studious daniel, both exiled by their fathers death but, in different ways, both determined to make their mark on the world and there is daniels son, kannan, faced with a set of challenges that could break him if he isnt strong enough

Penguin House Of Blue Mangoes

David Davidar

Penguin

Suffocating in the small-town world of his parents, Vijay is desperate to escape to the raw energy of Bombay in the early 1990s. His big chance arrives unexpectedly when the family servant, Raju, is recruited by a right-wing organization. As a result of an article he writes about the increasing power of sectarian politicians, Vijay gets a job in a small Bombay publication, The Indian Secularist. There he meets Rustom Sorabjee — the inspirational founder of the magazine who opens Vijay’s eyes to the damage caused to the nation by the mixing of religion and politics.A year after his arrival in Bombay, Vijay is caught up in violent riots that rip though the city, a reflection of the upsurge of fundamentalism everywhere in the country. He is sent to a small tea town in the Nilgiri Mountains to recover, but finds that the unrest in the rest of India has touched this peaceful spot as well, specifically a spectacular shrine called The Tower of God, which is the object of political wrangling. He is befriended by Noah, an enigmatic and colourful character who lives in the local cemetery and quotes Pessoa, Cavafy, and Rimbaud, but is ostracized by a local elite obsessed with little more than growing their prize fuchsias. As the discord surrounding the local shrine comes to a head, Vijay tries to alert them to the dangers, but his intervention will have consequences he could never have foreseen.The Solitude of Emperors is a stunningly perceptive novel about modern India, about what drives fundamentalist beliefs, and what makes someone driven, bold, or mad enough to make a stand.I thought about the taxi driver who had been murdered. Deepak hadn’t said whether he was young or old, but I imagined him to be as young as I was, and there was a good chance that he, like me, was a recent immigrant to the city, perhaps from Hyderabad, or some smaller place that did not have enough work or resources to hold on to its young. He would have come here hoping to make his fortune, and maybe in time he would have.Why had he worn the badges of his faith to the very end, I wondered. Even when his life was at stake, why hadn’t he thought to take them off? Maybe they were so much a part of him, he hadn’t even seen them as symbols to be discarded. They would have helped him link himself to a community, of course, until he had saved enough to bring his family over from his home town because it was likely he had married young. Until this fateful day, his religion would have saved him from the loneliness of the room in the chawl or slum. He would go to the mosque, meet others as lonely as he was. They would do their namaz together, celebrate the great festivals of Id and Ramzan with feasts of biryani on Mohammed Ali Road. Yes, his religion had been good to him, until the day it had devoured him.—From The Solitude of EmperorsFrom the Hardcover edition.

The Solitude of Emperors

MCCLELLAND STEWART

Viking/Penguin

The House of Blue Mangoes (Import)

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Weidenfeld&Nicolson

The House of Blue Mangoes

Weiden and Nicolson

Ithaca

HARPER/COLLINS

It is the last year of the nineteenth century in the village of chevathar in southern india solomon dorai, the headman, is desperately trying to hold together the fraying ends of village life at a time of huge social and political unease when violence finally erupts, it takes solomon and the traditional structure of the village with it three generations of dorais come and go in the village by the sea, winning and losing the battle of chevathar there are solomon's sons: the dazzling, athletic aaron and the studious daniel, both exiled by their father's death but in different ways, both determined to make their mark on the world and there is daniel's son, kannan, faced with a set of challenges that could break him if he isn't strong enough this is a passionate, powerful novel in which the triumphs and tragedies of wonderfully conceived characters are set against a background of extraordinary historical events a new york times notable book published in 16 countries a skilful mix of personal and political, set against the backdrop of the indian independence struggle

The house of Blue Mangoes

Aleph Book Company

We do not know what to do with one of our most precious resources, solitude, and so we fill it up with noise and clutter...' Suffocating in the small-town world of his parents, Vijay is desperate to escape to the raw energy of Bombay in the early 1990s. His big chance arrives unexpectedly when the family servant, Raju, is recruited by a right-wing organization. As a result of an article he writes about the increasing power of sectarian politicians, Vijay gets a job in a small Bombay publication, The Indian Secularist. There he meets Rustom Sorabjee-the inspirational founder of the magazine who opens Vijay's eyes to the damage caused to the nation by the mixing of religion and politics. A year after his arrival in Bombay, Vijay is caught up in violent riots that rip through the city, a reflection of the upsurge of fundamentalism everywhere in the country. He is sent to a small tea town in the Nilgiri mountains to recover, but finds that the unrest in the rest of India has touched this peaceful spot as well, specifically a spectacular shrine called The Tower of God, which is the object of political wrangling. He is befriended by Noah, an enigmatic and colourful character who lives in the local cemetery and quotes Pessoa, Cavafy and Rimbaud but is ostracized by a local elite obsessed with little more than growing their prized fuchsias. As the discord surrounding the local shrine comes to a head, Vijay tries to alert them to the dangers, but his intervention will have consequences which he could never have foreseen. The Solitude of Emperors is a stunningly perceptive novel about modern India, about what motivates fundamentalist beliefs, and what makes someone driven, bold or mad enough to make a stand. A stunningly perceptive novel about modern India with a host of quirky characters that lend colour to it. It is a novel about what motivates fundamentalist beliefs, and what makes someone driven, bold or mad enough to make a stand and will appeal to readers of all age groups. Written by bestselling author David Davidar, The Solitude of Emperors was shortlisted for a regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

Aleph Book Company The Solitude Of Emperors [Paperback] David Davidar

History & Criticism

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by David Davidar. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by David Davidar