BOOKS FROM INDIAUntouchable
Tags:
Set in India
Description:
The powerful story of an Untouchable in India’s caste system, now with a new introduction With precision, vitality, and a fury that earned him praise as India’s Charles Dickens, Mulk Raj Anand recreates in Untouchable what it was like to live on the fringes of society in pre-independence India. Bakha, an attractive, proud, and strong young man, is also an Untouchable, the lowest of the low in India’s caste system. A sweeper and a toilet-cleaner, he must warn others on the street of his status so that he will not pollute them with his presence. In this urgent 1935 re-creation of one day in the life of an outcast, a violent encounter leads Bakha to question his fate—and to find an answer in the unlikeliest of places. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Reviews:
(5 months ago) |
30 Apr, 2025
A day in the life of an “Untouchable” in India during the 1930s. Bakha is a sweeper and toilet-cleaner, the lowest of the Indian rungs in the Hindu caste system. Through all the insults and frustrations, Bakha performs his work efficiently and gracefully. Throughout he maintains his dignity and tries to find purpose in his life.
I have put this book under India though it might be Pakistan. The author was born in Peshawar in 1905 when it was still part of British India. It became part of Pakistan in 1947
|