Kamala Markandaya

Bombay tiger

A compulsively readable story of struggle for survival in a large modern city and how it demeans human life. Ravi, son of a peasant, joins in the general exodus to the city, and, floating through the indifferent streets, lands into the underworld of petty criminals. He falls in love with pretty Nalini, and marries her against all odds. She tries to change his way of life, but fate conspires against him...and the story moves to a memorable climax.

A Handful of Rice

Set in a village in southern India shortly after India gained Independence, Nectar in a Sieve portrays, through the lives of its characters ̶̶ Rukmani, Nathan and their children ̶̶ the hopes and aspirations of a young nation recently embarked on the path of development, surmounting many obstacles along the way. Few novels ever published have celebrated the human spirit, its sheer resilience, with greater success. Originally published in 1954 to instant acclaim, Nectar in a Sieve became an international best-seller and was translated into seventeen languages. This edition introduces a whole new generation to this classic of modern literature.

Nectar in a Sieve

Om en inder i London og hans reaktion på racefordomme og ydmygelser

A Novel

The Nowhere Man

In een klein vissersdorp in India verandert het leven ingrijpend als er een modern vakantiedorp wordt gebouwd.

Pleasure City

Shalimar

Originally published: New York: J. Day Co., 1955.

This riveting social portrait of India tells the story of a peasant woman in a primitive village whose whole life was a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loved

Set in a village in southern India shortly after India gained independence, Nectar in a Sieve portrays, through the lives of its characters -Rukmani, Nathan and their children - the hopes and aspirations of a young nation recently embarked on the path of development, surmounting many obstacles along the way. Few novels ever published have celebrated the human spirit, its sheer resilience, with greater success.

A Novel by Kamala Markandaya Pseud

The story of a simple woman of India and her struggle to find happiness in a changing India and to fight poverty and disaster.

Nettare in un setaccio

In a small village in India, a simple peasant woman recalls her life as a child bride, a farmer's wife, and a devoted mother amidst fights to meet changing times, poverty, and disaster.

Possession

Madu dalam saringan

“This Is a Novel to Retain in Your Heart and Library” —Milwaukee Journal This beautiful and eloquent story tells of a simple peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life was a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loved. Married as a child-bride to a tenant farmer she had never seen, she worked side by side in the field with her husband to wrest a living from land that was ravaged by droughts, monsoons, and insects. With remarkable fortitude and courage, she sought to meet changing times and fight poverty and disaster. She saw one of her infants die from starvation, her daughter become a prostitute, and her sons leave the land for jobs which she distrusted. One of the outstanding novels of recent years, this book received unstinting praise from the critics: “An elemental book. It has something better than power, the truth of distilled experience.” —New York Herald Tribune “Unique in poetic beauty, in classically restrained and controlled tragedy.”—Dorothy Canfield Fisher, noted author and critic “Will wring your hearts.”—Associated Press “A superb job in telling her story.”—Christian Science Monitor

The Coffer Dams Is An Absorbing Tale About Mechanical Strength And Spiritual Weakness, Physical Certainties And Moral Doubts. It Is Set In Modern India But The Conflict Of Values At Its Heart Is Universal John Masters Clinton, Founder And Head Of A Firm Of International Construction Engineers, Arrives In India To Build A Dam, Bringing With Him His Young Wife, Helen, And A Strong Team Of Aides And Skilled Men. They Are Faced With A Formidable Project, Which Involves Working In Daunting Mountain And Jungle Terrain, Within A Time Schedule Dictated By The Extreme Tropical Weather. Inevitable Setbacks Occur; Accidents And Friction Among The Mixed Labour Force Present Further Complications. But To Clinton The Building Of The Dam Is More Than A Challenge; It Is An Obsession Not, However, Shared By Helen. Appalled By Her Husband S Concern With Structures Rather Than With Men, She Turns To The Local Indian Tribesmen, Finding In Them The Human Values She Finds Lacking In The British Camp. With Relations Between The Clintons Becoming Increasingly Raw-Edged, The First Rains Fall And, As The Torrents Sweep The Valley And The Level Of The River Rises, So Does The Tension In The Beleaguered Camp. The Vital Question Looms: To Breach The Coffer Dams, Or Allow Them To Stand, Thereby Placing The Lives Of The Tribesmen In Jeopardy. It Is A Fundamental Question That Splits The Camp Exposing The Lingering Prejudices Of A Bygone Colonial Era. First Published In 1969, The Coffer Dams Is Vintage Kamala Markandaya, A Pioneer Who Influenced Many Indian Writers In English.

The Coffer Dams

Bawajiraj, the benign Maharajah of a prosperous Indian State, rules with the help of his Brahim Prime Minister and the British Agent. He is immensely wealthy, but he is also a British puppet. Rabi, the child of Bawajiraj's union with a commoner, grows up as the focus of opposing influences, between which he must eventually choose.

The Golden Honeycomb

Kamala Markandaya, author of the classic Nectar in a Sieve, published ten novels in all, the last of which appeared in 1982. For the next two decades, till her death in 2004, she lived a life of near anonymity in the outskirts of London. But she hadn’t stopped writing; shortly after her death, her daughter discovered the finished typescript of a new, unpublished novel: The Catalyst: Alias, Bombay Tiger. Set in the 1980s, Bombay Tiger tells the story of Ganguli—mercurial and larger-than-life—who arrives in Bombay with little more than ruthless ambition, and becomes the city’s biggest industrialist. A Citizen Kane-like figure—destined to become one of the most memorable protagonists in Indian fiction—Ganguli is emblematic of a changing India, post the era of high socialism, beginning to be transformed by private enterprise. This sweeping novel, poignant and comic by turns, traces his dramatic rise and fall, his loves and losses, and his eventual redemption. Gloriously rich in incident and character and marked by Markandaya’s deep humanity, Bombay Tiger is the work of a major writer at the height of her powers.

Kamala Markandaya

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