The Twice-Born
Life and Death on the Ganges
Format:Hardback
Publisher:C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
Published:14th Mar '19
Should be back in stock very soon
When Aatish Taseer first came to Benares, the spiritual capital of Hinduism, he was eighteen, the Westernized child of an Indian journalist and a Pakistani politician, raised among the intellectual and cultural elite of New Delhi. Nearly two decades later, Taseer leaves his life in Manhattan to go in search of the Brahmins, wanting to understand his own estrangement from India through their ties to tradition. Known as the twice-born--first into the flesh, and again when initiated into their vocation--the Brahmins are a caste devoted to sacred learning. But what Taseer finds in Benares is a window on an India as internally fractured as his own continent-bridging identity. At every turn, the seductive, homogenizing force of modernity collides with the insistent presence of the past. In a globalized world, to be modern is to renounce India--and yet the tide of nationalism is rising, heralded by cries of 'Victory to Mother India!' and an outbreak of anti-Muslim violence. From the narrow streets of the temple town to a Modi rally in Delhi, among the blossoming cotton trees and the bathers and burning corpses of the Ganges, Taseer struggles to reconcile magic with reason, faith in tradition with hope for the future and the brutalities of the caste system, all the while challenging his own myths about himself, his past, and his countries old and new.
‘A detailed, learned and highly readable tour of Hindu history . . . [and] a sharp-eyed condemnation of the evils of Hindu nationalism and caste.'
'Taseer is interested in the Brahmins of the city, but he is also interested in himself, how he came to be in this part of the world or that, how he arrives at certain conclusions.' * Times Literary Supplement *
[The Twice-Born] doesn’t sit squarely in the camp of memoir, travelogue, or long-form reportage. It hovers among the three―but with such lilting grace as to make that limbo feel like a lovely hybrid . . . Taseer grew up in cosmopolitan, postcolonial New Delhi but has spent much of his adult life in the U.S. and Europe. The result is an alienation from the India he considers both his homeland and a foreign land . . . [The Twice-Born is] a poetic quest to bridge that gap or at least better understand it.’
'[A]n excellent, revelatory, provocative book' -- Hanya Yanagihara
'Taseer sets [his] meditations against a gorgeous, sinister portrait of Benares . . . [His] wonderfully atmospheric rendition of landscapes and gnarled social psychologies make for an engrossing dissection of India's discontents.' -- Publishers Weekly
'I love Aatish Taseer's writing: his introspection, his lucid and supple prose, his sensitivity to the interplay of tradition and modernity, East and West, old and new India. "The Twice-Born" is a poignant reflection on identity, change and politics on the banks of the Ganges. A moving and thought-provoking read.' -- Shashi Tharoor MP, author of 'Inglorious Empire' and 'Why I Am a Hindu'
‘The writing has a lyrical quality that makes you want to wander the streets of [Benares] once more. … 'The Twice-Born' makes the reader think about religion, caste, culture and the idea of modernity, and most rewardingly, about where she stands in relation to all of these.’ * Hindustan Times *
‘The most rewarding [book] written by a contemporary writer on the perpetually romanced—and sacred—geography of India. … Every encounter here is a story fo wonderment and disillusionment … 'The Twice-Born' … carries the most elegant sentences written about India by a writer of our time’ * Open magazine *
'Taseer writes like he always does, relentlessly, intensely, sometimes unkindly, in a complex way, raising questions with a deep intelligence that disturbs more than it quietens.' -- The Telegraph, Calcutta
ISBN: 9781787381193
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
344 pages