Kirin Narayan's Books

Alive in the Writing

Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov

By: Kirin Narayan

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Alive in the Writing

Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov

By: Kirin Narayan

Anton Chekhov is revered as a boldly innovative playwright and short story writer - but he wrote more than just plays and stories. In this book, the author introduces readers to some other sides of Chekhov.

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Page Count

170

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226568180

ISBN 13

9780226568188

My Family and Other Saints

By: Kirin Narayan

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My Family and Other Saints

By: Kirin Narayan

Autobiographies and biographies.

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Page Count

246

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226568210

ISBN 13

9780226568218

Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels

Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching

By: Kirin Narayan

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Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels

Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching

By: Kirin Narayan

Swamiji, a Hindu holy man, is the central character of Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels. He reclines in a deck chair in his modern apartment in western India, telling subtle and entertaining folk narratives to his assorted gatherings. Among the listeners is Kirin Narayan, who knew Swamiji when she was a child in India and who has returned from America as an anthropologist. In her book Narayan builds on Swamiji's tales and his audiences' interpretations to ask why religious teachings the world over are so often couched in stories. For centuries, religious teachers from many traditions have used stories to instruct their followers. When Swamiji tells a story, the local barber rocks in helpless laughter, and a sari-wearing French nurse looks on enrapt. Farmers make decisions based on the tales, and American psychotherapists take notes that link the storytelling to their own practices. Narayan herself is a key character in this ethnography. As both a local woman and a foreign academic, she is somewhere between participant and observer, reacting to the nuances of fieldwork with a sensitivity that only such a position can bring. Each story s reproduced in its evocative performance setting. Narayan supplements eight folk narratives with discussions of audience participation and response as well as relevant Hindu themes. All these stories focus on the complex figure of the Hindu ascetic and so sharpen our understanding of renunciation and gurus in South Asia. While Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels raises provocative theoretical issues, it is also a moving human document. Swamiji, with his droll characterizations, inventive mind, and generous spirit, is a memorable character. The book contributes to a growing interdisciplinary literature on narrative. It will be particularly valuable to students and scholars of anthropology, folklore, performance studies, religions, and South Asian studies.

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Page Count

301

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0812205839

ISBN 13

9780812205831

My Family & Other Saints

By: Kirin Narayan

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My Family & Other Saints

By: Kirin Narayan

Kirin Narayan'S Memoir Is A Delightful Account Of The Clash Of Cultures And Centuries, As Manifested In An Indian-American Family Rich In Character And Eccentricity. Ramachandra Guha, Author Of India After Gandhi. In 1969, Kirin Narayan'S Older Brother Rahoul Announced That He Was Dropping Out Of School And Leaving Home To Seek Enlightenment With A Guru. Young Kirin Adored Her High-Spirited, Charismatic Brother And Looked On Bewildered At The Events That His Dramatic Departure Set In Motion. A Funny, Poignant, And Always Affectionate Memoir, My Family And Other Saints Follows The Ways That Rahoul'S Spiritual Journey Reverberates Through The Entire Family. As The Family'S Beachside Bombay Home Becomes A Crossroads For Westerners Seeking Eastern Enlightenment, Kirin'S Sari-Wearing American Mother Didi Enthusiastically Embraces Ashrams And Gurus, Adopting Her Son'S Spiritual Quest As Her Own. Her Urbane Indian Father Narayan, However, Coins The Term 'Urug' Guru Spelled Backward To Mock These Seekers. Meeting Radiant Holy Men, Sensing Her Parents Drifting Apart, And Observing Waves Of Young Westerners Turning To Meditation, Kirin Is Left To Find Her Own Answers. 'My Family And Other Saints Echoes Gerald Durrell'S Classic Memoir, My Family And Other Animals, Not Only In Its Title, But In Its Wonderful Humour And Lyrical Prose.' Judith Barrington

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Page Count

339

Published Date

ISBN 10

8172237197

ISBN 13

9788172237196

Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon

Himalayan Foothill Folktales

By: Kirin Narayan,Urmila Devi Sood

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Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon

Himalayan Foothill Folktales

By: Kirin Narayan,Urmila Devi Sood

Oral tales establish relationships between storytellers and their listeners. Yet most printed collections of folktales contain only stories, stripped of the human contexts in which they are told. If storytellers are mentioned at all, they are rarely consulted about what meanings they see in their tales. In this innovative book, Indian-American anthropologist Kirin Narayan reproduces twenty-one folktales narrated in a mountain dialect by a middle-aged Indian village woman, Urmila Devi Sood, or "Urmilaji." The tales are set within the larger story of Kirin Narayan's research in the Himalayan foothill region of Kangra, and of her growing friendship with Urmilaji Sood. In turn, Urmilaji Sood supplements her tales with interpretations of the wisdom that she discerns in their plots. At a moment when the mass-media is flooding through rural India, Urmilaji Sood asserts the value of her tales which have been told and retold across generations. As she says, "Television can't teach you these things." These tales serve as both moral instruction and as beguiling entertainment. The first set of tales, focussing on women's domestic rituals, lays out guidelines for female devotion and virtue. Here are tales of a pious washerwoman who brings the dead to life, a female weevil observing fasts for a better rebirth, a barren woman who adopts a frog and lights ritual oil lamps, and a queen who remains with her husband through twelve arduous years of affliction. The women performing these rituals and listening to the accompanying stories are thought to bring good fortune to their marriages, and long life to their relatives. The second set of tales, associated with passing the time around the fire through long winter nights, are magical adventure tales. Urmilaji Sood tells of a matchmaker who marries a princess off to a lion, God splitting a boy claimed by two families into two selves, a prince's journey to the land of the demons, and a girl transformed into a bird by her stepmother. In an increasingly interconnected world, anthropologists' authority to depict and theorize about distant people's lives is under fire. Kirin Narayan seeks solutions to this crisis in anthropology by locating the exchange of knowledge in a respectful, affectionate collaboration. Through the medium of oral narratives, Urmilaji Sood describes her own life and lives around her, and through the medium of ethnography Kirin Narayan shows how broader conclusions emerge from specific, spirited interactions. Set evocatively amid the changing seasons in a Himalayan foothill village, this pathbreaking book draws a moving portrait of an accomplished woman storyteller. Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon offers a window into the joys and sorrows of women's changing lives in rural India, and reveals the significance of oral storytelling in nurturing human ties.

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Page Count

286

Publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195103491

ISBN 13

9780195103496

Everyday Creativity

Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills

By: Kirin Narayan

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Everyday Creativity

Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills

By: Kirin Narayan

This book by anthropologist Kirin Narayana thoughtful exploration of Kangra women s singing over the past thirty yearsis part ethnography, part travelogue, part musical discovery, part poetry and poetry translation, and three parts memoir. Like the intricate geometries of mandalu patterns drawn in the courtyard outside a home or clothes meticulously stitched, well-crafted songs identify a woman as smart, adept, and skilledand so are a source of status. Kangra singers speak of singing as enriching their lives; the well-being generated by shared songs brings feelings of accomplishment, companionship, happiness, solace, peacefulness, even good health and recovery from illness. The concept Narayan keeps finding herself returning to, however, is creativitythe everyday creativity that brings well-being. In this book, the second in our new Big Issues in Music series, Narayan beautifully draws out the particulars of everyday creativity in women s singing in Kangra, as well as giving readers the more general gift of a new way of thinking of creativityin music and the arts, in crafts, and in everyday life.

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Page Count

279

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022640756X

ISBN 13

9780226407562

My Family and Other Saints

By: Kirin Narayan

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My Family and Other Saints

By: Kirin Narayan

Autobiographies and biographies.

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Page Count

246

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226568210

ISBN 13

9780226568218

Alive in the Writing

Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov

By: Kirin Narayan

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Alive in the Writing

Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov

By: Kirin Narayan

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Page Count

170

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226568180

ISBN 13

9780226568188

Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels

Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching

By: Kirin Narayan

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Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels

Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching

By: Kirin Narayan

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Page Count

301

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0812205839

ISBN 13

9780812205831

Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon

Himalayan Foothill Folktales

By: Kirin Narayan,Urmila Devi Sood

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Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon

Himalayan Foothill Folktales

By: Kirin Narayan,Urmila Devi Sood

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Page Count

286

Publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195103483

ISBN 13

9780195103489

Everyday Creativity

Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills

By: Kirin Narayan

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Everyday Creativity

Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills

By: Kirin Narayan

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279

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022640756X

ISBN 13

9780226407562

Cave of My Ancestors

Vishwakarma and the Artisans of Ellora

By: Kirin Narayan

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Cave of My Ancestors

Vishwakarma and the Artisans of Ellora

By: Kirin Narayan

Exploring family stories reveals the rich history of a seventh-century Buddhist shrine. As a young girl in Bombay, Kirin Narayan was enthralled by her father’s stories about how their ancestors had made the ancient rock-cut cave temples at Ellora. Recalling those stories as an adult, she was inspired to learn more about the caves, especially the Buddhist worship hall known as the “Vishwakarma cave.” Immersing herself in family history, oral traditions, and works by archaeologists, art historians, scholars of Buddhism, Indologists, and Sanskritists, Narayan set out to answer the question of how this cave came to be venerated as the home of Vishwakarma, the god of making in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Cave of My Ancestors represents the perfect blend of Narayan’s skills as a researcher and writer. Her quest to trace her family’s stories took her to Ellora; through libraries, archives, and museums around the world; and across disciplinary borders. Equal parts scholarship, detective story, and memoir, Narayan’s book ably leads readers through centuries of history, offering a sensitive meditation on devotion, wonder, and all that connects us to place, family, the past, and the divine.

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Page Count

278

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226835286

ISBN 13

9780226835280

Cave of My Ancestors

Vishwakarma and the Artisans of Ellora

By: Kirin Narayan

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Cave of My Ancestors

Vishwakarma and the Artisans of Ellora

By: Kirin Narayan

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

278

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226835286

ISBN 13

9780226835280

Book's by Kirin Narayan

Alive in the Writing

Alive in the Writing

My Family and Other Saints

My Family and Other Saints

Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels

Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels

My Family & Other Saints

My Family & Other Saints

Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon

Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon

Everyday Creativity

Everyday Creativity

My Family and Other Saints

My Family and Other Saints

Alive in the Writing

Alive in the Writing

Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels

Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels

Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon

Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon

Everyday Creativity

Everyday Creativity

Cave of My Ancestors

Cave of My Ancestors

Cave of My Ancestors

Cave of My Ancestors

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