My Nine Lives

Used
Hardcover
2004
$4.46

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is a novelist of unequalled insight, grace and emotional power. My Nine Lives represents a new and fascinating strand in her outstanding canon of work: as she puts it, the 'potentially autobiographical'. Behind her poised, eloquent prose Ruth Prawer Jhabvala deftly tussles with the existential question of how destiny is shaped. In each chapter of My Nine Lives the narrator faces a startlingly different fate. One story takes place in India, the next in New York; in one the narrator is a grown married woman, in another a dependent daughter, in one a scholar, in another an uneducated ingenue. But a complex thread interlinks the seemingly disparate stories: the 'I' of each chapter has Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Jewish, Central European background. Here are nine different answers to the central question: what would happen if I were granted an alternative life?

Synopsis

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is a novelist of unequalled insight, grace and emotional power. My Nine Lives represents a new and fascinating strand in her outstanding canon of work: as she puts it, the 'potentially autobiographical'. Behind her poised, eloquent prose Ruth Prawer Jhabvala deftly tussles with the existential question of how destiny is shaped. In each chapter of My Nine Lives the narrator faces a startlingly different fate. One story takes place in India, the next in New York; in one the narrator is a grown married woman, in another a dependent daughter, in one a scholar, in another an uneducated ingenue. But a complex thread interlinks the seemingly disparate stories: the 'I' of each chapter has Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Jewish, Central European background. Here are nine different answers to the central question: what would happen if I were granted an alternative life?

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 288
Edition: 1st
Publisher: John Murray
Published: 21 Jun 2004
ISBN 10: 0719561825
ISBN 13: 9780719561825

Media Reviews

'These stories ... show an admired writer ... in total possession of her creative powers.' -- Literary Review 'Savour this fine collection of stories... the sort of writing that marks out a genuine mistress of her craft' -- The Sunday Times 'Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is a wonderful natural storyteller ... utterly compelling. It is a delight, from first page to last' -- The Scotsman 'She creates a scenario so powerfully that you are there with her in the spicy heat of India' -- The Daily Telegraph 20040724 'Each work has her hallmark of balance, subtlety, wry humor and beauty' -- New York Times Book Review 20040724 'Combined, these tales form an oblique portrait of the inner life of the author.' -- Sunday Times 20050327 'The most prominent theme is a string of inadvisable affairs with irascible, unreliable older men ...perhaps it'll be 10th time lucky?' -- The Guardian 20050312 'One is dazzled but tantalised by veiled fragments of a life that might have been.' -- Guardian 20050319 'Imagining what life might have been ...this is fiction that comes as close to autobiography as the author dares.' - Emma Hagestadt. -- The Independent 20050304 'By the end, while she may not fully have revealed herself, she has shown the grand sweep of life.' - Elena Seymenliyska. -- The Daily Telegraph 20050312

Author Bio

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was born in Germany of Polish parents and came to England in 1939 at the age of twelve. She graduated from Queen Mary College, London University, and married the Indian architect C.S.H. Jhabvala. They lived in Delhi from 1951 to 1975. Since then they have divided their time between Delhi, New York and London. As well as her numerous novels and short stories, in collaboration with James Ivory and Ismail Merchant Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has written scripts for film and television, including A Room with a View and Howards End, both of which are Academy Award winners. She won the Booker Prize for Heat and Dust in 1975, the Neil Gunn International Fellowship in 1978, the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1984 and was made a CBE in the 1998 New Year's Honours List.