Last Suttee - Libroj.org

Lingvo: English

Eldonita je 20-a de oktobro 2021 de Indy Pub.

ISBN:: 978-1-0879-7692-1

(1 recenzo)

"You must come at once if you want to stop the suttee from happening again...” This phone message summons Kumud Kuthiyala back to Neela Nagar, the blue town of her youth, and the shackled life she thought she had left behind forever...

As a nine-year-old, Kumud witnessed the brutal and horrifying suttee ritual when her beloved aunt immolated herself on the burning pyre of her dead husband. Years later, Kumud summoned the courage to escape the isolated and primitive town of her youth to start a new life in Ambayu, a metropolitan city. She began as office help at Save Girls Soul Orphanage Center and progressed to become its director. At SGSO Center, she becomes a warrior for women’s education and equal rights. She teaches young women to protect themselves from outmoded practices and rituals that victimize women.

Then a phone call informs Kumud that the suttee of a sixteen-year-old …

"You must come at once if you want to stop the suttee from happening again...” This phone message summons Kumud Kuthiyala back to Neela Nagar, the blue town of her youth, and the shackled life she thought she had left behind forever...

As a nine-year-old, Kumud witnessed the brutal and horrifying suttee ritual when her beloved aunt immolated herself on the burning pyre of her dead husband. Years later, Kumud summoned the courage to escape the isolated and primitive town of her youth to start a new life in Ambayu, a metropolitan city. She began as office help at Save Girls Soul Orphanage Center and progressed to become its director. At SGSO Center, she becomes a warrior for women’s education and equal rights. She teaches young women to protect themselves from outmoded practices and rituals that victimize women.

Then a phone call informs Kumud that the suttee of a sixteen-year-old is inevitable. She has vowed that she will never let it happen again. Still haunted by her aunt’s suttee, she leaves everything behind, including her love, Shekhar Roy, to end the barbaric custom that scarred her for life, and to save the young bride from committing suttee.

As Kumud travels back to the town of her youth, long-buried memories resurface and force her to remember the life from which she fled. The town that greets her is full of contradictions. It has electricity and clean water, and a new school is open to low castes, yet superstition and prejudice abound. How can she convince the town that their centuries-old tradition is cruel and barbaric, that a widowed young woman deserves the right to live? Can she change the minds of the townspeople and the Five Elders before it’s too late?

2 eldonoj

Stephanie Jane recenzis Last Suttee de Madhu Bazaz Wangu

A thoughtful novel

3 steloj

What most impressed me about The Last Suttee was the volume of research that the author must have done prior to writing her novel. Authenticity streams from the pages and I now feel that I have a good understanding of not just the suttee ritual itself, but its religious and historic significance. That the ritual still has even the tiniest place in the modern world seems, of course, an incredible idea, but an entirely plausible one especially in the context of this novel.

Wangu tells her story through a series of strong characters linked by their relationships to our heroine Kumud. My main criticism of The Last Suttee would be that conversations between characters do not always feel natural and people launch into extended speeches at the drop of a hat. Their actions however are always convincing and I found it depressingly easy to understand how the young widow at …

What most impressed me about The Last Suttee was the volume of research that the author must have done prior to writing her novel. Authenticity streams from the pages and I now feel that I have a good understanding of not just the suttee ritual itself, but its religious and historic significance. That the ritual still has even the tiniest place in the modern world seems, of course, an incredible idea, but an entirely plausible one especially in the context of this novel.

Wangu tells her story through a series of strong characters linked by their relationships to our heroine Kumud. My main criticism of The Last Suttee would be that conversations between characters do not always feel natural and people launch into extended speeches at the drop of a hat. Their actions however are always convincing and I found it depressingly easy to understand how the young widow at the centre of the furore had been brainwashed into believing not only that she had no choice in her fate, but that suttee really was the right action to take.

Basic women's rights are a strong theme throughout this book and Wangu puts forward her arguments for emancipation over tradition without being overly preachy. I always felt characters voiced their own opinions rather than just repeating their author's words. After a gentle start, the pace and tension both build excitingly so I would almost call this a thriller by the end! There is consistently a great sense of place too. India came alive for me and I am happy to have had the opportunity to experience this thoughtful novel.