Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land

John Thieme (University of East Anglia)

Ed. by John Thieme, University of East Anglia
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 10.3.1.03: Indian Writing and Culture: Post-colonial, 1947-present.
Vol. editors: Claire Gallien (Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3), Pavan Kumar Malreddy (J W Goethe University of Frankfurt), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1992

Places

India (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Guidebooks / Travel writing
Historical representation
Novel

Resources

At first sight In An Antique Land (1992) appears to be both generically and thematically different from Ghosh's two preceding works, the novels The Circle of Reason and The Shadow Lines. An apparently factual “history in the guise of a traveller's tale” (the sub-title of one of the editions of the text), it moves between two narratives. The more extensive is ostensibly a travel-book, in which a Ghosh persona, engaged in anthropological research in Egypt, describes his experiences living in a fellaheen village. In the shorter narrative, a version of which has also been published in Subaltern Studies as “The Slave of MS. H. 6”, the persona pursues the fugitive traces of the “slave” of a twelfth-…

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1372 words

Citation: Thieme, John. "In an Antique Land". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 March 2003 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4512, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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