Kamala Das

Broschiertes Buch

Childhood in Malabar

A Memoir

Beschreibung

It is the Second World War and Kamala and her brother are removed from their parents' home in Calcutta to the safer environs of their village in northern Kerala. At once an outsider and an integral part of her ancestral home, Kamala struggles to fathom the intricacies of class, caste and language. But surrounded by people like her adoring Ammamma, the servant Sankaran who promises to teach her the crow-language, and Valli who tells her stories of yakshis whose breasts are as big as jackfruits, Kamala soon discovers the joys of growing up as the center of everyone's universe. As Calcutta fades from her mind like an old dream, while the thudding of the drums at the Para festival, the roar of the velichappadu as he becomes possessed and the songs of the parayankaali dancers become absolute realities of life.

Autor

Kamala Das (1934-2009) was a major Indian English poet and an important Malayalam writer. She was born into a distinguished literary family. Her mother, Balamani Amma, was a well-known Malayalam poet and her grand-uncle Nalapat Narayana Menon was a renowned writer and translator. She grew up in Punnayurkulam, her ancestral village in Kerala, and in Calcutta where her parents lived. She was married off at the age of fifteen, and began writing and publishing while in her teens. With her taboo-breaking early poetry and her controversial autobiography, Kamala became an icon for Indian women. In English, she published six collections of poetry in her lifetime-Summer in Calcutta (1965), The Descendants (1967), The Old Playhouse and Other Poems (1973), Collected Poems vol. I (1984), Only the Soul Knows How to Sing: Selections from Kamala Das (1996), Encountering Kamala (2007)-and her autobiography, My Story (1976). She was recognized with many literary prizes, including the Sahitya Akademi and the Vayalar awards.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Penguin Random House India Pvt. Ltd
• Seitenzahl: 224
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Januar 2009
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 198mm x 131mm x 17mm
• Gewicht: 167g
• ISBN-13: 9780143068358
• ISBN-10: 0143068350
• Artikelnr.: 42357920