DUFF COOPER AWARD WINNER
125TH BIRTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
An Essay on the Peoples of India
The Continent of Circe, the result of Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s lifetime effort to understand the nature of things Indian, describes the human situation in India after Independence. In the process of research, he worked exhaustively with Indian ethnic communities. His account has the kaleidoscopic quality of a motion picture. It links all historic events from the Aryan migration up to Nehru’s death in a coherent though shifting perspective, while revealing that the grip of established tradition on all communities has not relaxed.
The highlight of this book is undoubtedly the author’s imaginative interpretation of the Hindu personality based on original sources. Chaudhuri’s language is forceful and expressive, and his arguments are well-defined and lucid.
This book is one of this controversial author’s most compelling and authoritative works—a landmark in Indian literary history.
NIRAD C. CHAUDHURI CBE was born on November 23, 1897, in Kishorganj, now in Bangladesh. Chaudhuri’s first book, Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, written in 1947, was an instant success and received universal critical acclaim. In 1955, Chaudhuri first visited England to broadcast a series of talks for the BBC, and this memorable journey prompted him to write A Passage to England. He migrated to England in 1970 and lived in Oxford, England till his death in 1999.
“Nirad Chaudhuri has been, throughout his long life, an erudite, contrary, and mischievious presence...”
SALMAN RUSHDIE
