Overview
Multilayered, subtle, insightful short stories from the inimitable Booker Prizeāwinning author, with an introduction by Anita Desai
Nobody has written so powerfully of the relationship between and within India and the Western middle classes than Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. In this selection of stories, chosen by her surviving family, her ability to tenderly and humorously view the situations faced by three (sometimes interacting) culturesāEuropean, postāIndependence Indian, and Americanāis never more acute.
In āA Course of English Studies,ā a young woman arrives at Oxford from India and struggles to adapt, not only to the sad, stoic object of her infatuation, but also to a country that seems so resistant to passion and color. In the wrenching āExpiation,ā the blind, unconditional love of a cloth shop owner for his wastrel younger brother exposes the tragic beauty and foolishness of human compassion and faith. The wry and triumphant āPagansā brings us middleāaged sisters Brigitte and Frankie in Los Angeles, who discover a youthful sexuality in the company of the languid and handsome young Indian, Shoki. This collection also includes Jhabvalaās last story, āThe Judgeās Will,ā which appeared in The New Yorker in 2013 after her death.
The profound inner experience of both men and women is at the center of Jhabvalaās writing: she rivals Jane Austen with her impeccable powers of observation. With an introduction by her friend, the writer Anita Desai, At the End of the Century celebrates a writerās astonishing lifetime gift for language, and leaves us with no doubt of Ruth Prawer Jhabvalaās unique place in modern literature.
"The storiesāall of them elegantly plotted and unsentimental, with an addictive, toldāoverātea qualityāare largely character studies of people isolated, often tragically, by custom or selfādelusion . . . Vivid, unsparing portraits are leavened with the kind of humanizing moments that evoke a total world within their compression."āMegan OāGrady, The New York Times Book Review
This book title, At the End of the Century (The Stories of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala), ISBN: 9781640093249, by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Anita Desai, published by Catapult (June 11, 2019) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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