Overview

The product of a 25-year exploration of India's cultural and religious traditions, this collection of biographies introduces the reader to nine unforgettable characters. They include a Buddhist monk who takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet and then spends the rest of his life trying to atone for the violence by hand printing the best prayer flags in India; a Jain nun who tests her powers of detachment as she watches her best friend ritually starve to death; and a devadasi, or temple prostitute, who resists her own initiation into sex work yet pushes both of her daughters into a trade she now regards as a sacred calling. This fascinating, visceral evocation of India delves deep into the heart of a nation torn between the relentless onslaught of modernity and the ancient traditions that endure to this day. El producto de una exploración de 25 años de las tradiciones culturales y religiosas de la India, esta colección de biografías le presenta al lector nueve personajes inolvidables. Incluyen un monje budista que empuña armas para resistir la invasión china del Tibet y que por el resto de su vida intenta expiar esa violencia estampando las mejores banderas de oración de la India; una monja jainista que pone a la prueba sus poderes de desapego mientras ve como su mejor amiga se priva de comida como ritual; y una devadasi--o prostituta templaria--que se resiste a su propia iniciación en las prestaciones sexuales, para luego empujar a sus hijas a un mundo que ahora considera como una vocación sagrada. Esta fascinante y visceral evocación de la India hurga en el corazón de una nación que debate entre la marcha inexorable de la modernidad y las tradiciones antiguas que siguen hasta el presente.

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Reviews

This is travel writing at its best. -- Observer , on the English-language edition This is travel writing at its best. Observer, on the English-language edition Beautifully written [and] ridiculously erudite. Times, on the English-language edition

This is travel writing at its best. -- Observer , on the English-language edition

Beautifully written [and] ridiculously erudite. --Times, on the English-language edition This is travel writing at its best. --Observer, on the English-language edition

Author Information

William Dalrymple is a Scottish writer and the author of City of Djinns, which won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year award; The Last Mughal, which was long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize; and White Muchals, which won the Wolfson History Prize and the Scottish Book of the Year award. He lives outside of Delhi.

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