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The City is all cities. The River is the mother of cities. The Grand Master rules the city by the river and is determined to become its unchallenged King. Things move smoothly in this earthly Eden, till a strange prophecy is made by the palace astrologer. The learned man predicts the crowning of a new King in place of the Grand Master…
With quiet humour and characteristic skill, Joshi plots the path of intrigue and corruption in high places. The Grandmaster is surrounded by a coterie of fawning councillors, whose sole aim is to remain in limelight and improve their hierarchical standing.
The politics in the novel has unmistakable echoes of the Emergency period of 1974-75; acquisition of unlimited powers, presence of self-seeking sycophants, shadow of an heir apparent, and loss of individual freedom pose significant questions about identity, commitment and faith in a hostile society.
The story is narrated in easy flowing prose blending political satire with philosophical and spiritual dimensions.
Autoren-Profil
ARUN JOSHI (1939-1993) was educated in India and in the U.S.A. He first came into prominence as a novelist with The Foreigner (1968) and soon came to be recognised as an author of rare sensitivity and exceptional talent.
He evolved a style and thematic approach uniquely his own and was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1982. His works represent a unique depiction of the dual between the internal and external, the intuitive and the imposed.
In his fiction Joshi often wrote about people who were not at home in this world, who felt out of place in the smart social circuit of metropolitan life. Despite outwardly being very much a part of world of action – an MIT trained engineer involved in business and industry – he was essentially a bit like heroes – shy, solitary and living away from the media glare with rare self-effacing grace.
World Literature Today, Oklahoma University, hailed him as ‘one of the very few Indo-English novelists who holds mirror to the subtleties and complexities of contemporary Indian life.’
The City & The River, is his last novel.
