15 November, 2012

Stories About the Partition of India (Vol. IV)


Stories About the Partition of India (Vol. IV)

By- Alok Bhalla (ed.)


When the first three volumes of the Stories about the Partition of India were published more than a decade ago, they were widely acknowledged as the most comprehensive collection of texts in English translations from the three countries of the subcontinent. Ever since then, the anthology has remained an invaluable resource for historical and literary studies trying to understand the politics of religious identities, colonial predatoriness, linguistic chauvinism, or the partitions of the large states to resolve ethnic conflicts anywhere. The new edition of the collection enlarges the range of the anthology by adding a fourth volume which includes a large number of stories from Bengali and Sindhi that speak eloquently about the continuing sorrows of separatist and fundamentalist world-views which destroy old neighborhoods, encourage despair and add to human misery. The additional volume should enable scholars to add fresh insights into the history of the partition as it affected two regions which have yet not become the subject of serious literary and archival research. The anthology is further enriched by including stories by many of the finest writers in Urdu, Punjabi or Hindi which have become available only recently in English translations. This volume has also made a special effort to include more stories by major women writers from different languages like Qurratulain Hyder, Khadija Mastur, Popati Hiranandani, Dalip Kaur Tiwana; Nisha Da Cunha, Rajee Seth, Farkhnanda Lodhi and Syeda Farida Rahman.

In a review of the first edition of this collection, the New York Times said that Alok Bhalla’s anthology had done a “fine . . . job of evoking the terror, bewilderment and the remorse that still shadows so many lives on the subcontinent”.


Alok Bhalla obtained his Ph.D from Kent State University, USA. He was a Lady Davis Visiting Professor, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Fellow at the Rockefeller Centre, Bellagio, Italy and Fellow at the IIAS, Shimla.


ISBN  978-81-7304-936-1   2012   486p.   Rs.995/Pounds 90

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