Vintage Raja Rao! Paradigmatic and lovely as mother Ganges is .Eleven short stories have to be read at one go and then they weave themselves into a novel . Compelling reading.
Economics Times
A delightful book comic and irreverent, more joyously implicated in this world than any other work by Raja Rao. It sparkles
Times of India
The contradiction and the brittle enchantments of Banaras, its strange characters and their confused metaphysics come finely etched in this collection of short stories by one of India's greatest living authors.
National Herald
Photographic realism is entwined with tounge-in-check in commentary and feverish expectation.
Hindu
About the Book
ON THE GANGA GHAT explores the play of life as it unfolds in Banares, the cherished ultimate destination of millions of Indians, the holy city to die in. and so it is that to Ganga ghats in Banaras came rajahs and princes from Bengal; beggars; katiawari merchants; courtesans; crooks; simpletons and charlatans seeking meaning in life, or redemption in death. No less varied are the creatures of the Banaras themselves: the gentle, brahmchari Madhoba and his Mohini-a feminine presence. Something more than a goddess, a woman; Bhim, the sage parrot; the Brahmini cow Jhaveri Bai bounteous concubines like Nanna; hard swearing, mantra-chanting sadhus laughing at the foibles of others.
On the Ganga Ghat is a collection of eleven stories, and marks Raja Rao's return to the short story after a gap of over a decade. The prose is exquisite: chiseled, sparse yet evocative. The result is mesmerizing.
About the Author
Raja Rao was born in Mysore in 1909 and went to Europe at the age of nineteen, researching in literature at the University of Montpellier and at the Sorbonne. He wrote and published his first stories in French and English. After living in France for a number of years, he moved to USA where he taught at the University of Austin, Texas.
His five novels- and three collections of short stories have all won wide and exceptional international acclaim. The Serpent and the Rope was selected for the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award, India's highest literary honour. More recently, and coinciding with the publication of The Chessmaster and His Moves, Raja Rao was awarded the 1988 Neustadt International Prize for literature which is given every two years to outstanding world writers.
Raja Rao is not at work revising the next two volumes of the Chessmaster trilogy.
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