Mountains painted with turmeric : a novel

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

Mountains painted with turmeric : a novel

Lil Bahadur Chettri ; translated from the Nepali by Michael J. Hutt

Columbia University Press, c2008

Other Title

Basāim̐

Uniform Title

Basāim̐

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Note

Novel

Translated from Nepali

Includes bibliographical references (p. [121]-123)

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Since its publication in the late 1950s, Mountains Painted with Turmeric has struck a chord in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Nepali readers. Set in the hills of far eastern Nepal, the novel offers readers a window into the lives of the people by depicting in subtle detail the stark realities of village life. Carefully translated from the original text, Mountains Painted with Turmeric tells the story of a peasant farmer named Dhane (which means, ironically, "wealthy one") who is struggling to provide for his wife and son and arrange the marriage of his beautiful younger sister. Unable to keep up with the financial demands of the "big men" who control his village, Dhane and his family suffer one calamity after another, and a series of quarrels with fellow villagers forces them into exile. In haunting prose, Lil Bahadur Chettri portrays the dukha, or suffering and sorrow, endured by ordinary peasants; the exploitation of the poor by the rich and powerful; and the social conservatism that twists a community into punishing a woman for being the victim of a crime. Chettri describes the impoverishment, dispossession, and banishment of Dhane's family to expose profound divisions between those who prosper and those who are slowly stripped of their meager possessions. Yet he also conveys the warmth and intimacy of village society, from which Dhane and his family are ultimately excluded.

Table of Contents

Foreword Mountains Painted with Turmeric Afterword: Nepali Critics and Basain Notes Bibliography

by "Nielsen BookData"

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