O Sister Swallow: An Elegy for Bharati Namjoshi
Shouldn’t there be a bridge from the known to the unknown?
In this exquisite elegy, Suniti Namjoshi reflects on the life of her sister Bharati, their overlapping yet disparate lives, their nearness and distance, and what it means to belong and to be valued.
The two sisters love one another and they love birds; but they live on different continents and think in different languages. Is this what sisterhood is really about – to acknowledge difference and still to understand and to care?
This rich book with its tender and elegant language is full of both joy and grief. It is a generous yet poignant invitation from the author to us to contemplate our own experiences.
If the casual, implacable insolence of death could be answered by building a monument or by writing an elegy, perhaps it would do till language crumbled and the edifice fell.
JUNE 2024 | ISBN 9781922964083 | Paperback | 120 pages | 198 x 128 (mm)
Endorsements
“A beautiful book about the vagaries and strengths of sisterly love. A many-faceted gem.”
—Susan Varga, novelist, poet, biographer, author of Rupture“A deeply moving, genre-disrupting, passionate work, studded with gem-like lines, from the pioneering and always surprising Suniti Namjoshi.”
— Ruth Vanita, author of Love’s Rite, Memory of Light and A Slight Angle“It's full of wisdom and love, and sorrow, and loss. And yes, humour.”
— Urvashi Butalia, author of The Other Side of Silence“Suniti Namjoshi in this deeply soul-searching elegy for her beloved sister Bharati has gifted the world with a testimonial to what is the pure essence of truth and love.”
—Revd Julie Lipp-Nathaniel“Suniti Namjoshi will make you cry and smile, at times together. Like the swoop of a swallow, her prose glimmers and astounds. A luminous story of love, loss, and the fragility of relationships. And that fleeting thing, life.”
—Bijal Vachharajani, children’s author and editor
