Book Readings: "The burden of foreknowledge" by Jawahara Saidullah
Indian writing in English indeed has come of age in the last few decades. From RK Narayan, Raja Rao and Shanta Rama Rau, to quote a few from my college days, highly readable stuff backed with excellent historical research is written by various authors some of whom are well known and some not so well known. Jawahara Saidullah is an Indo-American writer who has created a style of her own in telling stories with great creativity. One inescapable aspect of her writing is the feminine view of looking at the world and its complexities from an oriental perspective. The book in hand ' The Burden of Foreknowledge' is the magical story of Nadee, the girl with the unique gift of foreknowledge. The background of the story is 16th-century North Indian life along the Ganges and its tributary Yamuna. Nadee, the lone young family survivor of a devastating flood at Zameerp...