Drawing the reader into the uncharted zone between fantasy and reality, this novel is an odyssey across the landscape of a changing urban India. It follows neglected lives, trapped in despair, as they take off on their private flights of hope.
Raj Kamal Jha Knihy
1. január 1966
Raj Kamal Jha je uznávaný prozaik a šéfredaktor denníka The Indian Express. Jeho písanie skúma komplexnosť ľudskej skúsenosti, ponára sa do hlbokých tém s výrazným naratívnym štýlom. Jhaov prístup k rozprávaniu príbehov je prenikavý aj evokatívny, vtiahne čitateľov do bohato predstavovaných svetov. Jeho dielo je oslavované pre svoju literárnu hĺbku a jedinečnú perspektívu.
The Blue Bedspread
- 228 stránok
- 8 hodin čítania
In a house on a Calcutta street, lit by the half-light of a yellow street lamp, lies a baby, one day old, wrapped in its hospital towel. In the next room sits a man, all alone, writing. Who is this man, at once frightened and determined? What is he writing? Where has the baby come from and where will it go? Tonight, these questions will be answered when the man unravels the dark secrets he has carried all his life.
<i>The Blue Bedspread</i> has earned Raj Kamal Jha endless comparisons to Raymond Carver. And his first novel does tell a Carver-esque tale, in which poverty-stricken family members love and torment one another in the privacy of their home. Father drinks; mother is an absence; sister and brother find solace in each other. In addition, his voice is that unsettling combination--affectless and passionate--that characterizes the best of Carver's writing. These are writers who state plainly the difficult things people do to one another.<p> But while Carver gave us the dead reaches of the American West, Jha's novel is set in Calcutta. And it's thrilling to read about India in this new voice that is cool, concise, and beautifully observed, as opposed to the florid, expressive writing that has come to typify this nation. Jha has chosen a neat narrative device for his tale. An unnamed man receives a call in the night. His beloved but estranged sister has died in childbirth. The baby's adoptive parents are due the next day to take the infant away. All night long, this lonely man stays up writing the history of his family, the history of the dead baby's mother.</p><p> The revelations--abuse, incest--would be shocking if they weren't written with such careful tenderness. The man writes about how his sister finally left their childhood home: "In a way, it was essential that one of us should leave never to return. It saved both of us the discomfort and the pain of sitting together as adults and talking about everything except those nights on the blue bedspread, that July night on the blue bedspread, moments that were key to our survival and yet better left untouched and unsaid." Jha even throws in a little redemption for these sad characters, and we're all grateful for the relief. <i>--Claire Dederer</i></p>
Eine furiose literarische Auseinandersetzung mit der Zerrissenheit des gegenwärtigen Indien - und eine magische Reise ins Reich der Phantasie. Februar 2002: Eine beispiellose Welle der Gewalt erschüttert die indische Stadt Ahmedabad, doch Mr. Jay nimmt die Apokalypse um ihn herum kaum wahr, denn er erwartet die Geburt seines ersten Kindes. Da gelangt unter mysteriösen Umständen ein Foto in seine Hände; darauf ein verbranntes Buch, eine zerbrochene Uhr und ein blutiges Handtuch. Noch ahnt er nicht, welche Bewandtnis diese Dinge für sein Leben haben - und er wird fortgerissen auf eine Reise in die Nacht, in der Terror und Zärtlichkeit ganz nah beieinander liegen
