Voices from the Lost Horizon Stories and Songs of the Great Andamanese Anvita Abbi
The King and the Consul A British Tragedy in Old Siam Simon Landy
Banaras Of Gods, Humans and Stories Text by Nilosree Biswas, photographs by Irfan Nabi
The Andaman Islands — Great Andaman, Little Andaman, and North Sentinel Islands have been home for millennia to four tribes: the Great Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa, and Sentinelese. Their languages are known by the same name as that of the tribes. These languages were mutually intelligible like a link in a chain. However, today, Great Andamanese is a moribund language of the only-surviving pre-Neolithic tribe, breathing its last breath. Prof. Anvita Abbi to conducted a research study to give life to the lost oral heritage of the vanishing world of the Great Andamanese. Voices from the Lost Horizon is a collection of a number of folk tales and songs of the Great Andamanese. The compilation comes with audio and video recordings of the stories and songs to retain the originality and orality of the narratives.
In 1856, just months after Britain and Siam had finalized the historic Bowring trade treaty that would prevent the country’s colonization, the violent death of a Siamese official at the new British consulate threatens to scuttle the deal and lead to war. The King and the Consul explores UK and Thai archives to reveal the twists, turns and tensions of this littleknown episode. The crisis was resolved without war, but not without cost for the participants. By examining the background to this tragedy, the book reveals how history has often overlooked the importance of an issue that lay behind it the right of foreigners to own land in the country, an issue that continues to be a thorn in the side of Thailand’s foreign relations to this day.
Banaras is an enigma with a carefully crafted antiquity that runs deep into its veins. Banaras is about all its elements and many sights and sounds. It is about the visible thousands, the Banarasis (the dwellers), the pilgrims, the tourists, the patrons, the kings, the emperors, and the nameless. Banaras is the perceived ‘sacred’ by the believer, reflected in its past created and recreated, finally standing ground in the contemporary or the livedin, in particular. A visit to Banaras leaves you with vivid memories or recall of a particular moment which resides in one’s senses long after the journey. This book is about the author’s sensing of Banaras, a quest to comprehend all of the above and a catalyst to experience more.
9789391125066 Niyogi Books 7 x 9.5in. 176pp., 70 col. Available $25.00/CDN$33.00 Hardback, non-returnable
9786164510593 River Books 5.625 x 8.25in. 248pp., 39 b.&w. April 2022 $24.95/CDN$32.95 Hardback
9789389136777 Niyogi Books 9 x 9in. 240pp., 353 col. Available $45.00/CDN$57.50 Hardback, non-returnable
114
Literature/History
