Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Bengali Tales from the Land of the Eighteen Tides

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Tony K. Stewart Ayesha A. Irani

Needle at the Bottom of the Sea

Bengali Tales from the Land of the Eighteen Tides

Tony K. Stewart, Ayesha A. Irani

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English

University of California Press
31 January 2023

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Asian history; Hinduism; Ethnic studies

Series: World Literature in Translation

These enchanting stories from early modern Bengal reveal how Hindu and Muslim traditions converged on timeless themes of human morality, social culture, and survival.

The Bengali stories in this collection are first and foremost tales of survival. Each story in Needle at the Bottom of the Sea underscores the need for people to work together—not just to overcome the challenges of living in the Sundarban swamps of Bengal, but also to ease hostilities born of social differences in religion, caste, and economic class.

Translated by award-winning scholar of early modern Bengali literature Tony K. Stewart, Needle at the Bottom of the Sea brims with fantasy and excitement. Sufi protagonists travel through a world of wonder where tigers talk and men magically grow into giants, a Hindu princess falls in love with a Muslim holy man, and goddesses rub shoulders with kings and merchants. Across religion, class, and gender, what binds these fabulous stories together is the characters’ pursuit of living honorably and morally in a difficult, corrupt world.

By: Tony K. Stewart
Contributions by: Ayesha A. Irani
Imprint: University of California Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 197mm, Width: 127mm, Spine: 33mm
Weight: 363g
ISBN: 9780520388932
ISBN 10: 0520388933
Series: World Literature in Translation
Pages: 424
Publication Date: 31 January 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Contents Introduction The Auspicious Tale of the Lord of the Southern Regions The Rāy mangal of Krsnarām Dās Scouring the World for Cāmpāvatī Gāji kālu o cāmpāvatī kanyār puthi of Ābdul Ohāb Glorifying the Protective Matron of the Jungle Bonbibī jahurā nāmā of Mohāmmad Khater Wayward Wives and Their Magical Flying Tree Satya nārāyaner puthi of Kavi Vallabh Curbing the Hubris of Moses Khoyāj Khijir’s Instruction to Musā in Nabīvamśa of Saiyad Sultān translated with Ayesha A. Irani Glossary Acknowledgments

Tony K. Stewart is Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in Humanities, Emeritus, at Vanderbilt University and a specialist in the early modern literatures of the Bengali-speaking world. His most recent work is Witness to Marvels: Sufism and Literary Imagination, winner of the 2021 Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies.

Reviews for Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Bengali Tales from the Land of the Eighteen Tides

"""Brave and vivid . . . [Stewart's translation] helps the anglophone reader enter this world in which karma supplies the ultimate explanation of the often bizarre adventures of the human spirit so richly explored in these stories."" -- Wendy Doniger * The New York Review of Books *"