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The Space Between Us de Thrity Umrigar

The Space Between Us

Autor Thrity Umrigar
en Limba Engleză Paperback – 26 mar 2007

Considerăm că forța acestui roman rezidă în structura sa duală, o oglindire a două destine feminine separate de barierele de castă, dar unite de vulnerabilități universale. The Space Between Us nu este doar o cronică a Mumbaiului contemporan, ci o explorare intimă a distanței psihologice dintre Sera Dubash, o femeie din clasa de mijloc, și Bhima, servitoarea care i-a fost alături timp de decenii. Deși împart același spațiu domestic, viețile lor sunt guvernate de coduri sociale diferite, pe care Thrity Umrigar le descrie cu o onestitate tăioasă, fără a cădea în capcana sentimentalismului.

Observăm în această lucrare o rafinare a temelor pe care autoarea le-a explorat anterior în Bombay Time sau The Weight of Heaven. Dacă în acele volume accentul cădea pe comunitate sau pe impactul străinului în India, aici Umrigar restrânge cadrul la spațiul claustrofobic al casei și al mahalalei. Ritmul lecturii este susținut de revelații treptate despre trecutul celor două femei, oferind o perspectivă nuanțată asupra modului în care onoarea și tradiția pot deveni instrumente de opresiune. Sensibilitatea cu care este tratată prietenia imposibilă dintre protagoniste amintește de dinamica din Someone Else's Garden de Dipika Rai — unde tradițiile rurale îngrădesc libertatea individuală — însă Umrigar aduce un glas propriu, marcat de rigoarea sa de jurnalistă premiată și de o capacitate rară de a surprinde „epifaniile” personajelor sale în momente de criză.

Recomandăm această lectură pentru felul în care reușește să transforme contextul social al Indiei moderne într-o poveste atemporală despre demnitate. Este un roman despre spațiile invizibile dintre noi, despre lucrurile nespuse care mențin ierarhiile și despre momentele rare de solidaritate care le pot dărâma.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780061121241
ISBN-10: 006112124X
Pagini: 468
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 27 mm
Greutate: 0.52 kg
Ediția:Text mare
Editura: HarperCollins Publishers
Colecția WmMorrow

De ce să citești această carte

Recomandăm această carte cititorilor care caută proză contemporană profundă despre condiția feminină și barierele sociale. Veți câștiga o înțelegere nuanțată a Indiei moderne, dincolo de clișee, printr-o poveste despre onoare și supraviețuire. Este o lectură esențială pentru cei care au apreciat The World We Found, oferind aceeași intensitate emoțională, dar concentrată pe o relație de o complexitate psihologică rară.

Despre autor

Thrity Umrigar este o scriitoare și jurnalistă de origine indiană, stabilită în Statele Unite, unde ocupă poziția de profesor de engleză la Case Western Reserve University. Cariera sa literară cuprinde romane apreciate precum Honor și The World We Found, dar și volume pentru copii precum Binny's Diwali. Recunoscută pentru acuratețea observației sociale, a fost distinsă cu premii prestigioase, printre care Cleveland Arts Prize și bursa Nieman la Universitatea Harvard. Experiența sa de jurnalist pentru publicații ca Washington Post se reflectă în stilul său precis și în capacitatea de a aborda subiecte dificile precum sistemul de caste și inegalitatea de gen.

Descriere scurtă

“This is a story intimately and compassionately toldagainst the sensuous background of everyday life in Bombay.” —Washington Post Book World
 
“Bracingly honest.” —New York Times Book Review
 
The author of Bombay Time,If Today Be Sweet, and The Weight of Heaven, Thrity Umrigar is at adept andcompelling in The Space Between Us—vividlycapturing the social struggles of modern India in a luminous, addictivelyreadable novel of honor, tradition, class, gender, and family. A portrayal oftwo woman discovering an emotional rapport as they struggle against theconfines of a rigid caste system, Umrigar’scaptivating second novel echoes the timeless intensity of ZoraNeale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were WatchingGod, Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows inBrooklyn, and Barbara Kingsolver’s ThePoisonwood Bible—a quintessential triumph of modern literary fiction.

Textul de pe ultima copertă

Each morning, Bhima, a domestic servant in contemporary Bombay, leaves her own small shanty in the slums to tend to another woman's house. In Sera Dubash's home, Bhima scrubs the floors of a house in which she remains an outsider. She cleans furniture she is not permitted to sit on. She washes glasses from which she is not allowed to drink. Yet despite being separated from each other by blood and class, she and Sera find themselves bound by gender and shared life experiences.
Sera is an upper-middle-class Parsi housewife whose opulent surroundings hide the shame and disappointment of her abusive marriage. A widow, she devotes herself to her family, spending much of her time caring for her pregnant daughter, Dinaz, a kindhearted, educated professional, and her charming and successful son-in-law, Viraf.
Bhima, a stoic illiterate hardened by a life of despair and loss, has worked in the Dubash household for more than twenty years. Cursed by fate, she sacrifices all for her beautiful, headstrong granddaughter, Maya, a university student whose education -- paid for by Sera -- will enable them to escape the slums. But when an unwed Maya becomes pregnant by a man whose identity she refuses to reveal, Bhima's dreams of a better life for her granddaughter, as well as for herself, may be shattered forever.
Poignant and compelling, evocative and unforgettable, The Space Between Us is an intimate portrait of a distant yet familiar world. Set in modern-day India and witnessed through two compelling and achingly real women, the novel shows how the lives of the rich and the poor are intrinsically connected yet vastly removed from each other, and vividly captures how the bonds of womanhood are pitted against the divisions of class and culture.

Recenzii

“Umrigar is a perceptive and often piercing writer.... Her portrait of Sera as a woman unable to transcend her middle-class skin feels bracingly honest.” — New York Times Book Review
“[The Space Between Us] is a great book; I love it.... I couldn’t stop reading until Bhima had her amazing epiphany of freedom at the edge of the sea. I am so happy for Thrity Umrigar! And proud of her as a woman, too.... It is so precious to have a book about a woman one rarely even “sees” in society, whether Indian or American.” — Alice Walker on THE SPACE BETWEEN US
“Remarkable.... What makes The Space Between Us so engrossing is its ability to make readers feel empathy for its subjects.... To read Umrigar’s novel is to catch a glimpse of a foreign culture, for better and for worse. Yet while the class divide between Bhima and Sera provides much of the conflict in The Space Between Us, it isn’t the only source of disagreement. Class colors everything, but in the end, Umrigar shows, every one of life’s ups and downs are available to us all.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“Thrity Umrigar has created two wonderfully sympathetic characters who do much to make [India’s] complex nature comprehensible.... This is a story intimately and compassionately told against the sensuous background of everyday life in Bombay.... The life of the privileged is harshly measured against the life of the powerless, but empathy and compassion are evoked by both strong women, each of whom is forced to make a separate choice. Umrigar is a skilled storyteller, and her memorable characters will live on for a long time.” — Frances Itani, Washington Post Book World
“With humanity and suspense, novelist Thrity Umrigar tackles love, loyalty, injustice - and survival.” — Marie Claire
“Umrigar renders a collection of compelling and complex characters, from kind, conflicted Sera to fiercely devoted Bhima. Sadness suffuses this eloquent tale, whose heart-stopping plot twists reveal the ferocity of fate.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Set in contemporary Bombay, Umrigar’s second novel is an affecting portrait of a woman and her maid, whose lives, despite class disparity, are equally heartbreaking.... A subtle, elegant analysis of class and power. Umrigar transcends the specifics of two Bombay women and creates a novel that quietly roars against tyranny.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Poignant.” — Entertainment Weekly
“Umrigar’s schematic novel illustrates the intimacy, and the irreconcilable class divide, between two women in contemporary Bombay.... Umrigar’s writing achieves clarity.” — Publishers Weekly
“From page one, Thrity Umrigar’s novel thrusts us into a story that’s at once heartbreaking and soothing. Chronicling the tumultuous lives of two women, The Space Between Us doesn’t flinch from its scrutiny of human suffering; then it gently, gently guides us toward healing.” — Samrat Upadhyay, author of The Royal Ghosts
“A deeply affecting novel about a wealthy widow and her maid, who form a bond across the gulfs of class and status in modern-day Bombay.” — Life magazine
“Sadness suffuses this eloquent tale, whose heart-stopping plot twists reveal the ferocity of fate.” — Booklist (starred review)
“Heartbreaking.... A subtle, elegant analysis of class and power... that quietly roars against tyranny.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Intimately and compassionately told.... Sensuous.... Umrigar’s memorable characters will live on for a long time.” — Frances Itani, Washington Post Book World
“Umrigar is a perceptive and often piercing writer.” — New York Times Book Review
“[The Space Between Us] is provocative and disturbing.” — Boston Globe
“Umrigar is a highly skilled storyteller...the novel’s plot and depth of characterisation provide irresistible momentum.” — Time Out New York
“Umrigar’s imagery, gorgeous yet unflinching in its realism, creates a rich picture of Indian society in Bombay, from slum to skyscraper. Her symbolism is lovely.” — Charlotte Observer
"The Space Between Us is a novel that is hard to forget." — The Times (London)

Notă biografică

Thrity Umrigar is the author of seven novels Everybody's Son, The Story Hour, The World We Found, The Weight of Heaven, The Space Between Us, If Today Be Sweet, and Bombay Time; a memoir, First Darling of the Morning; and a children's picture book, When I Carried You in My Belly. A former journalist, she was awarded a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard and was a finalist for the PEN Beyond Margins Award. A professor of English at Case Western Reserve University, she lives in Cleveland, Ohio.