Now with a FREE Workbook (with a Danish glossary)!

Told on the day of his murder, this is story of Baumgartner, the eternal Jew, the perpetual outsider. Baumgartner grew up in Berlin and now lives in Bombay. But he belongs nowhere — too dark-skinned and Jewish for Hitler’s Germany, too fair and European for India, too German for the British — he is always an outsider. This is also a novel about the conditions in India — as they are, and as an outsider sees them. An exciting book and one of most ambitious of Anita Desai’s novels“Baumgartner ... at stifte bekendtskab med ham er virkelig en gave” (COB Handelsskolen). Workbook with glossary and exercises by Anna Garde and Anne Kristensen. (275 standard pages).
Level: A/B.

This selection covers 55 years of Indian poetry in English. It is the first anthology to represent not just the major poets of the past half-century — but also the different kinds of poetry written by the great range of younger poets who live in many countries as well as in India. It is a groundbreaking global anthology of 70 poets writing in a common language responding to shared traditions, different cultures and contrasting lives in the changing modern world. The starting-point is Nissim Ezekiel who published his first collection in London in 1952. It pays homage to major influences, including Ezekiel, Dom Moraes and Arun Kolatkar, who died within months of each other in 2004. It rediscovers forgotten figures such as Lawrence Bantleman and Gopal Honnalgere, and it serves as an introduction to the poets of the future. The book also shows that many Indian poets were mining the rich vein of Indian English long before novelists like Rushdie and Upamanyu Chatterjee started using it in their fiction. While some of the poets may have little in common in terms of culture (a number of them have never lived in India), this anthology shows how they are all bound by the intimate histories of a shared English language. Editor: Jeet Thayil. (422 pages)
Level: Gymnasiet

If you order one or more copies of this book, you can order one FREE set of Plain Tales from the Raj Cassettes (see below) — must be ordered at the same time!

An enormously diverse country: a host of religions; one of the most diverse terrains on earth; the latest technology side-by-side with primitive farming. An important trading nation since ancient times, its spices and precious stones made it a rich prize for foreign powers, who dominated it for centuries. Now independent, 21st-century India is home to over a billion people, a major center for information technology, and one of the fastest growing economies in the world.  Contents: Introduction; Land and cities; Past and present (incl. the political system); The economy; Arts and Living; The future; Almanac; Timeline; Glossary
Level: A general introduction for C/B

Special Offer! Get the fine hardback edition at the paperback price!
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Born against a background of poverty and civil war, divided along lines of caste, class, language and religion, independent India emerged, somehow, as a united and democratic country. This widely praised book tells the full story — the pain and the struggle, the humiliations and the glories — of the world's largest and least likely democracy. While India is sometimes the most exasperating country in the world, it is also one of the most interesting. Protests and conflicts that have peppered the history of free India. The story of modern India is also peopled with extraordinary characters. Ramachandra Guha gives us fresh insights into the lives and public careers of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, but also into the lives of lesser known Indians — peasants, tribals, women, workers and musicians. This book is a remarkable account of India’s rebirth and has already been hailed as a masterpiece of single volume history. Author: Ramachandra Guha. (896 pages)
Level: Library/Depot

If you order one or more copies of India (Nations of the World), you can order one of these free copies!

3 hours of original radio broadcasts — “the story of the Raj told by the voices who knew it”. Contains 4 programmes: 1) The Sahibs and the Land, 2) Lances and Rifles: The Indian Army, 3) The Memsahibs: The Wives and Daughters of the Raj, 4) The Heaven-born: The Indian Civil Service.

This is a very contemporary, humorous novel about the cross-cultural conflicts felt by many young people today. Set partly in the UK and partly in the Punjab region of India, (Un)arranged Marriage is a perceptive look at a young man's fight to free himself from family expectations and an arranged marriage he doesn't want:

(Un)arranged Marriage follows teenager Manny as he struggles to maintain his links to his family and live his own life. On the morning of his marriage, which also happens to be the morning of his 17th birthday, Manny looks back on his rebellious teenage years. From the age of 13 he has found that the values of the Leicester Punjabi community from which he comes have little relevance to him. He has nothing in common with his brothers or parents. Manny's older brothers appear to him to glory in their ignorance while his father is a hypocritical, violent drunk. His mother is a remote figure who appears only to ask what he wants to eat or to cry hysterically at his disobedience. Knowing that he is expected to follow the same path as his brothers into an arranged marriage at the age of seventeen and a blue collar job, Manny makes the decision to try to make himself the most unsuitable suitor possible, the bridegroom that no-one will choose for their daughter. Finally though, it is a family trip to India which sets Manny's mind on the course he had always suspected that he would have to take. The characters inhabit an unsentimental, realistic world, a world where kids often don't try quite hard enough at school and families cannot bridge the huge generation gaps between them. Manny's complete alienation from the Punjabi culture which his family are trying so hard to preserve is skillfully pictured here. The culture that Manny inherited is completely eclipsed as he embraces the Western culture he finds everywhere outside his home and which offers him the choices he desperately wants. Author: Bali Rai (272 pages)
Level: 9. kl.+/C/Linjefag