Everyday Creativity

"The great value of this book is that with sensitivity discloses the reality of women's lives in Indian villages and the stages of a woman life - from her wedding, motherhood, widowhood, to the old age - with all their difficulties, aims, desires and realistic possibilities."--Ann Grodzins Gold, coauthor of Listen to the Heron's Words "newbooks.asia" "Even as Narayan focuses on the musical choices of individual singers, she does not lose sight of the cultural context in which this creativity occurs. She briefly provides background on where and when these songs are sung and what role they fill in community life. She also places the songs within a larger tradition of sung stories about deities and devotees within Indian religions that cross oral and written bodies of work. Narayan's writing, however, continuously forefronts the personal pleasure that the women derive from curating and singing these songs. So, as Narayan examines oral literature--a common topic in anthropology and ethnomusicology--she constantly re minds the reader that its significance derives from the people who sing it. Focusing on everyday creativity allows her to examine the use of the texts rather than the texts themselves. . . . Everyday Creativity demonstrates how it is possible to write a monograph that is scholarly but not stuffy, beautifully written but thought provoking, and challenging in its humility of subject."-- "Notes"

Kirin Narayan is professor in the School of Culture, History, and Language in the College of Asia and the Pacific at Australia National University. She is the author of several books, including My Family and Other Saints and Alive in the Writing, both published by the University of Chicago Press.