Synopses & Reviews
Ever since Herodotus reported that it was home to gold-digging ants, travelers have been intrigued by India in all its beguiling complexity. This superb anthology gives us some of the best fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that has been written about the worlds second most populous nation over the past two centuries.
From Mark Twains puzzled fascination with Indian castes and customs, to Allen Ginsbergs awe at the countrys spiritual and natural splendors, or from J. R. Ackerleys delightful recollections of his visits with an eccentric gay Maharajah, to Gore Vidals unforgettable scene in his novel Creation, in which his character finally meets the Buddha and is bewilderedall twenty-five selections in India in Mind reveal a place that evokes, in the traveler, reactions ranging from fear and perplexity to astonishment and wonder. Edited and with an introduction and chapter notes by the award-winning novelist Pankaj Mishra, India in Mind is a marvel of sympathy, sensitivity, and perception, not to mention outstanding writing.
Review
"Superbly written, frank, and revealing both of themselves and of the bit of India they internalized..." booklist
Synopsis
Anyone who is enthralled by India or who loves fine writing will delight in this compendium of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry written by 25 of the country's most astute observers.
About the Author
Pankaj Mishra was born in North India in 1969 and now lives in London and India. He is the author of The Romantics, which won the Los Angeles Timess Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World. He is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, Granta, and The Times Literary Supplement.
Table of Contents
J. R. Ackerley, from
Hindoo HolidayPaul Bowles, “Notes Mailed at Nagercoil”
Bruce Chatwin, “Shamdev: The Wolf-Boy”
Robyn Davidson, from Desert Places
E. M. Forster, from Abinger Harvest
Allen Ginsberg, from Indian Journals
Hermann Hesse, from “Childhood of the Magician”
Pico Iyer, from Abandon
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, “Two More Under the Indian Sun”
Rudyard Kiplin, from Kim
Claude Lévi-Strauss, from Tristes Tropiques
André Malraux, from Anti-Memoirs
Peter Matthiessen, from The Snow Leopard
W. Somerset Maugham, from A Writers Notebook
Ved Mehta, from Portrait of India
Jan Morris, “Mrs. Gupta Never Rang”
V. S. Naipaul, from An Area of Darkness
George Orwell, “Shootining an Elephant”
Pier Paolo Pasolini, from The Scent of India
Octavio Paz, from A Tale of Two Gardens
Alan Ross, from Blindfold Games
Paul Scott, from The Jewel in the Crown
Paul Theroux, from The Great Railway Bazaar
Mark Twain, from Following the Equator
Gore Vidal, from Creation