| My Family and Other Saints Contributor(s): Narayan, Kirin (Author) |
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ISBN: 0226568210 ISBN-13: 9780226568218 Publisher: University of Chicago Press OUR PRICE: $17.82 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: September 2008 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Religious - Religion | Hinduism - General - Religion | Eastern |
| Dewey: 306.850 |
| Physical Information: 0.61" H x 6.5" W x 8.94" (0.77 lbs) 246 pages |
| Themes: - Religious Orientation - Hindu - Cultural Region - Indian - Ethnic Orientation - Indian - Topical - Family - Chronological Period - 1960's - Chronological Period - 1970's |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In 1969, young Kirin Narayan's older brother, Rahoul, announced that he was quitting school and leaving home to seek enlightenment with a guru. From boyhood, his restless creativity had continually surprised his family, but his departure shook up everyone-- especially Kirin, who adored her high-spirited, charismatic brother. A touching, funny, and always affectionate memoir, My Family and Other Saints traces the reverberations of Rahoul's spiritual journey through the entire family. As their beachside Bombay home becomes a crossroads for Westerners seeking Eastern enlightenment, Kirin's sari-wearing American mother wholeheartedly embraces ashrams and gurus, adopting her son's spiritual quest as her own. Her Indian father, however, coins the term "urug"--guru spelled backward--to mock these seekers, while young Kirin, surrounded by radiant holy men, parents drifting apart, and a motley of young, often eccentric Westerners, is left to find her own answers. Deftly recreating the turbulent emotional world of her bicultural adolescence, but overlaying it with the hard-won understanding of adulthood, Narayan presents a large, rambunctious cast of quirky characters. Throughout, she brings to life not just a family but also a time when just about everyone, it seemed, was consumed by some sort of spiritual quest. "A lovely book about the author's youth in Bombay, India. . . . The family home becomes a magnet for truth-seekers, and Narayan is there to affectionately document all of it."--Body + Soul "Gods, gurus and eccentric relatives compete for primacy in Kirin Narayan's enchanting memoir of her childhood in Bombay."--William Grimes, New York Times |
Contributor Bio(s): Narayan, Kirin: - Kirin Narayan is professor in the School of Culture, History, and Language in the College of Asia and the Pacific at Australia National University. She is the author of several books, including My Family and Other Saints and Alive in the Writing, both published by the University of Chicago Press. |