Amitav Ghosh, Author, says: ‘Writing ‘Jungle Nama’ was one of the greatest adventures of my life: not only was this my first foray into verse, it also provided me with an opportunity to collaborate with Salman Toor, one of the most talented artists of our time.’
Udayan Mitra, Publisher-Literary, says: Through Amitav Ghosh’s nuanced verse (a remarkably accomplished rendition in English of the cadences of the original Bengali folktale) and through Salman Toor’s spellbinding images, Jungle Nama evokes the mystery and majesty of the Sundarbans in a way that is unique and unforgettable. It is an absolute treat visually as well as textually, and we at HarperCollins India are so proud to be able to bring this extraordinary book to readers.
Jungle Nama is Amitav Ghosh’s verse adaptation of an episode from the legend of Bon Bibi, a tale popular in the villages of the Sundarban which also lies at the heart of the novel The Hungry Tide. It is the story of the avaricious rich merchant Dhona, the poor lad Dukhey, and his mother; it is also the story of Dokkhin Rai, a mighty spirit who appears to humans as a tiger, of Bon Bibi, the benign goddess of the forest, and her warrior brother Shah Jongoli.
The original print version of this legend, dating back to the nineteenth century, is composed in a Bengali verse meter known as dwipodi-poyar. Jungle Nama is a free adaptation of the legend, told entirely in a poyar-like meter of twenty-four syllable couplets that replicate the cadence of the original.
The first-ever book in verse by Amitav Ghosh, Jungle Nama evokes the wonder of the Sundarban through its poetry, accompanied by stunning artwork by the renowned artist Salman Toor. This is an illuminated edition of a fabulous folktale that every booklover will want to possess.
About the Author:
Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956, and grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka; he studied in Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria. He is the author of several acclaimed works of fiction and non-fiction including The Shadow Lines, In an Antique Land, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, the Ibis Trilogy, The Great Derangement and Gun Island.
Amitav Ghosh’s work has been translated into more than thirty languages. His essays have appeared in the New Yorker, the New Republic and the New York Times. He has been awarded and honoured across the world for his work. In 2019 Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the most important global thinkers of the preceding decade. The same year, the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honour, was conferred on him: he was the first English-language writer to receive the award.
About the Illustrator:
Salman Toor was born in 1983 in Lahore; he lives and works in New York. He received his MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. Salman Toor: How Will I Know, the artist’s first institutional solo exhibition, opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in 2020. Toor’s work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions and projects, including Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Are You Here?, the Lahore Biennale 2018; and the 2016 Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India. Toor is the recipient of a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, and his work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Tate, London; M Woods, Beijing; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
About HarperCollins Publishers India:
HarperCollins Publishers India is a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers. HarperCollins India publishes some of the finest writers from the Indian Subcontinent and around the world, publishing approximately 200 new books every year, with a print and digital catalogue of more than 2,000 titles across 10 imprints. Its authors have won almost every major literary award including the Man Booker Prize, JCB Prize, DSC Prize, New India Foundation Award, Atta Galatta Prize, Shakti Bhatt Prize, Gourmand Cookbook Award, Publishing Next Award, Tata Literature Live Award, Gaja Capital Business Book Prize, BICW Award, Sushila Devi Award, Prabha Khaitan Woman’s Voice Award, Sahitya Akademi Award and the Crossword Book Award. HarperCollins India has been awarded the Publisher of the Year Award three times: at Publishing Next in 2015, and at Tata Literature Live! in 2016 and 2018.
HarperCollins India also represents some of the finest publishers in the world including Egmont, Oneworld, Harvard University Press, Bonnier Zaffre, Usborne, Dover and Lonely Planet.
For more information please write to
jaseya.fazili@harpercollins.co.in
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