Songs at the River's Edge: Stories from a Bangladeshi Village

by Katy Gardner (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1997

  $3.56

  Katy Gardner's account of her fifteen-month stay in the small Bangladeshi village of Talukpur has become a classic study of rural life in South Asia.
  
  Through a series of beautifully crafted narratives, the villagers and their stories are brought vividly to life and the author's role as an outsider sensitively conveyed in her descriptions of the warm friendships she makes.
  
  Above all Songs at the River's Edge is written from a deep respect of Bangladesh and its country.

• Used

  Paperback
  1991

  $3.25

  One September night, Katy Gardner, a young British postgraduate student, travelled by boat across flooded fields to stay in the small Bangladeshi village of Talukpur. Through the series of narratives which constitute this book she sets out to bring to life the villagers and their stories. We meet Amma, who secretly secures a love potion for her shamed, deserted daughter; Banessa, a destitute woman who entertains everyone with her loud, vulgar songs; the young bride Hushnia, who goes into a swoon in an attempt to avoid her wedding day; and Abdul Hasain, the Quranic scholar who, when possessed of a jiin, forgets every word he has ever studied. We learn, too, of the author's life in the village: the warm friendships she makes, many with women secluded in purdah, and her clumsy attempts, wryly observed, to live as a villager and a Muslim woman.

• New

  Paperback
  1997

  $33.95

  Katy Gardner's account of her fifteen-month stay in the small Bangladeshi village of Talukpur has become a classic study of rural life in South Asia.
  
  Through a series of beautifully crafted narratives, the villagers and their stories are brought vividly to life and the author's role as an outsider sensitively conveyed in her descriptions of the warm friendships she makes.
  
  Above all Songs at the River's Edge is written from a deep respect of Bangladesh and its country.