Samskara - A Rite for a Dead Man

Author: U R Anantha Murthy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 1999
Language: English
Pages: 158
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195623886

Description

Samskara is both a religious novel and a contemporary poetic reworking of ancient Hindu themes and myths.

It is about a decaying Brahmin colony in a south Indian village. Its central event is a death, which brings in its wake a plague, moral chaos and a rebirth.

Originally published in Kannada in 1965, this novel soon became enormously popular with general readers and critics. The present English translation has been widely acclaimed, and the novel has been translated into several foreign languages as well as filmed.

TRANSLATOR: A K Ramanujan was a renowned poet and translator, best known for his modern English renderings of classical Tamil verse. He was William E Colvin Professor at the University of Chicago as well as a member of the Committee on Social Thought.