Kirin Narayan – författare

Narayan presents 21 stories learned and told orally by one woman, Urmila Devi, in Kangra, North India. Included are stories told for worship and stories told for entertainment. In the process of recounting the stories, Narayan brings to life her friendship with the storyteller, and also offers important arguments about oral traditions and performance, as well as about North Indian families and folklore.

Narayan presents 21 stories learned and told orally by one woman, Urmila Devi, in Kangra, North India. Included are stories told for worship and stories told for entertainment. In the process of recounting the stories, Narayan brings to life her friendship with the storyteller, and also offers important arguments about oral traditions and performance, as well as about North Indian families and folklore.

Kirin Narayan's imagination was captured the very first time, as a girl visiting the region, that she heard Kangra women join their voices together in song. Returning as an anthropologist, she became fascinated by how they spoke of singing as a form of enrichment, bringing feelings of accomplishment, companionship, happiness, and even good health all benefits of the "everyday creativity" she explores in this book. Part ethnography, part musical discovery, part poetry, part memoir, and part unforgettable portraits of creative individuals, this unique work draws on an association across forty years, and brings the Himalayan foothill region of Kangra in North India alive in sight and sound while celebrating the incredible powers of music in our lives. With rare and captivating eloquence, Narayan portrays Kangra songs about difficulties on the lives of goddesses and female saints as a path to well-being.Like the intricate geometries of mandalu patterns drawn in courtyards or the subtle balance of flavors in a meal, well-crafted songs offer a variety of deeply meaningful benefits: as a way of making something of value, as a means of establishing a community of shared pleasure and skill, as a path through hardships and limitations, and as an arena of renewed possibility. Everyday Creativity makes big the small world of Kangra song and opens up new ways of thinking about what creativity is to us and why we are so compelled to engage it.

Kirin Narayan's imagination was captured the very first time, as a girl visiting the region, that she heard Kangra women join their voices together in song. Returning as an anthropologist, she became fascinated by how they spoke of singing as a form of enrichment, bringing feelings of accomplishment, companionship, happiness, and even good health all benefits of the "everyday creativity" she explores in this book. Part ethnography, part musical discovery, part poetry, part memoir, and part unforgettable portraits of creative individuals, this unique work draws on an association across forty years, and brings the Himalayan foothill region of Kangra in North India alive in sight and sound while celebrating the incredible powers of music in our lives. With rare and captivating eloquence, Narayan portrays Kangra songs about difficulties on the lives of goddesses and female saints as a path to well-being.Like the intricate geometries of mandalu patterns drawn in courtyards or the subtle balance of flavors in a meal, well-crafted songs offer a variety of deeply meaningful benefits: as a way of making something of value, as a means of establishing a community of shared pleasure and skill, as a path through hardships and limitations, and as an arena of renewed possibility. Everyday Creativity makes big the small world of Kangra song and opens up new ways of thinking about what creativity is to us and why we are so compelled to engage it.

Anton Chekhov is revered as a boldly innovative playwright and short story writer - but he wrote more than just plays and stories. In "Alive in the Writing" - an intriguing hybrid of writing guide, biography, and literary analysis - anthropologist and novelist Kirin Narayan introduces readers to some other sides of Chekhov: his pithy, witty observations on the writing process; his life as a writer through accounts by his friends, family, and lovers; and, his venture into nonfiction through his book "Sakhalin Island". By closely attending to the people who lived under the appalling conditions of the Russian penal colony on "Sakhalin", Chekhov showed how empirical details combined with a literary flair can bring readers face to face with distant, different lives, enlarging a sense of human responsibility. Highlighting this balance of the empirical and the literary, Narayan uses Chekhov to bring new energy to the writing of ethnography and creative nonfiction alike.Weaving together selections from writing by and about him with examples from other talented ethnographers and memoirists, she offers practical exercises and advice on topics such as story, theory, place, person, voice, and self. A new and lively exploration of ethnography, Alive in the Writing shows how the genre's attentive, sustained connection with the lives of others can become a powerful tool for any writer.

Anton Chekhov is revered as a boldly innovative playwright and short story writer - but he wrote more than just plays and stories. In "Alive in the Writing" - an intriguing hybrid of writing guide, biography, and literary analysis - anthropologist and novelist Kirin Narayan introduces readers to some other sides of Chekhov: his pithy, witty observations on the writing process; his life as a writer through accounts by his friends, family, and lovers; and his venture into nonfiction through his book "Sakhalin Island". By closely attending to the people who lived under the appalling conditions of the Russian penal colony on Sakhalin, Chekhov showed how empirical details combined with a literary flair can bring readers face to face with distant, different lives, enlarging a sense of human responsibility. Highlighting this balance of the empirical and the literary, Narayan uses Chekhov to bring new energy to the writing of ethnography and creative nonfiction alike.Weaving together selections from writing by and about him with examples from other talented ethnographers and memoirists, she offers practical exercises and advice on topics such as story, theory, place, person, voice, and self. A new and lively exploration of ethnography, "Alive in the Writing" shows how the genre's attentive, sustained connection with the lives of others can become a powerful tool for any writer.

In 1969, young Kirin Narayan's older brother, Rahoul, announced that he was quitting school and leaving home to seek enlightenment with a guru. From boyhood, his restless creativity had continually surprised his family, but his departure shook up everyone - especially Kirin, who adored her high-spirited, charismatic brother.A touching, funny, and always affectionate memoir, "My Family and Other Saints" traces the reverberations of Rahoul's spiritual journey through the entire family. As their beachside Bombay home becomes a crossroads for Westerners seeking Eastern enlightenment, Kirin's sari-wearing American mother wholeheartedly embraces ashrams and gurus, adopting her son's spiritual quest as her own. Her Indian father, however, coins the term 'urug' - guru spelled backward - to mock these seekers, while young Kirin, surrounded by radiant holy men, parents drifting apart, and a motley of young, often eccentric Westerners, is left to find her own answers.Deftly recreating the turbulent emotional world of her bicultural adolescence, but overlaying it with the hard-won understanding of adulthood, Narayan presents a large, rambunctious cast of quirky characters.Throughout, she brings to life not just a family but also a time when just about everyone, it seemed, was consumed by some sort of spiritual quest.

Exploring family stories reveals the rich history of a seventh-century Buddhist shrine.  As a young girl in Bombay, Kirin Narayan was enthralled by her father’s stories about how their ancestors had made the ancient rock-cut cave temples at Ellora. Recalling those stories as an adult, she was inspired to learn more about the caves, especially the Buddhist worship hall known as the “Vishwakarma cave.” Immersing herself in family history, oral traditions, and works by archaeologists, art historians, scholars of Buddhism, Indologists, and Sanskritists, Narayan set out to answer the question of how this cave came to be venerated as the home of Vishwakarma, the god of making in Hindu and Buddhist traditions.  Cave of My Ancestors represents the perfect blend of Narayan’s skills as a researcher and writer. Her quest to trace her family’s stories took her to Ellora; through libraries, archives, and museums around the world; and across disciplinary borders. Equal parts scholarship, detective story, and memoir, Narayan’s book ably leads readers through centuries of history, offering a sensitive meditation on devotion, wonder, and all that connects us to place, family, the past, and the divine.

Exploring family stories reveals the rich history of a seventh-century Buddhist shrine.  As a young girl in Bombay, Kirin Narayan was enthralled by her father’s stories about how their ancestors had made the ancient rock-cut cave temples at Ellora. Recalling those stories as an adult, she was inspired to learn more about the caves, especially the Buddhist worship hall known as the “Vishwakarma cave.” Immersing herself in family history, oral traditions, and works by archaeologists, art historians, scholars of Buddhism, Indologists, and Sanskritists, Narayan set out to answer the question of how this cave came to be venerated as the home of Vishwakarma, the god of making in Hindu and Buddhist traditions.  Cave of My Ancestors represents the perfect blend of Narayan’s skills as a researcher and writer. Her quest to trace her family’s stories took her to Ellora; through libraries, archives, and museums around the world; and across disciplinary borders. Equal parts scholarship, detective story, and memoir, Narayan’s book ably leads readers through centuries of history, offering a sensitive meditation on devotion, wonder, and all that connects us to place, family, the past, and the divine.

Creativity and play erupt in the most solemn of everyday worlds as individuals reshape traditional forms in the light of changing historical circumstances. In this lively volume, fourteen distinguished anthropologists explore the life of creativity in social life across the globe and within the study of ethnography itself. Contributors include Barbara A. Babcock, Edward M. Bruner, James W. Fernandez, Don Handelman, Smadar Lavie, José E. Limon, Barbara Myerhoff, Kirin Narayan, Renato Rosaldo, Richard Schechner, Edward L. Schieffelin, Marjorie Shostak, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, and Edith Turner.

Swamiji, a Hindu holy man, is the central character of Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels. He reclines in a deck chair in his modern apartment in western India, telling subtle and entertaining folk narratives to his assorted gatherings. Among the listeners is Kirin Narayan, who knew Swamiji when she was a child in India and who has returned from America as an anthropologist. In her book Narayan builds on Swamiji's tales and his audiences' interpretations to ask why religious teachings the world over are so often couched in stories.For centuries, religious teachers from many traditions have used stories to instruct their followers. When Swamiji tells a story, the local barber rocks in helpless laughter, and a sari-wearing French nurse looks on enrapt. Farmers make decisions based on the tales, and American psychotherapists take notes that link the storytelling to their own practices. Narayan herself is a key character in this ethnography. As both a local woman and a foreign academic, she is somewhere between participant and observer, reacting to the nuances of fieldwork with a sensitivity that only such a position can bring.Each story s reproduced in its evocative performance setting. Narayan supplements eight folk narratives with discussions of audience participation and response as well as relevant Hindu themes. All these stories focus on the complex figure of the Hindu ascetic and so sharpen our understanding of renunciation and gurus in South Asia.While Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels raises provocative theoretical issues, it is also a moving human document. Swamiji, with his droll characterizations, inventive mind, and generous spirit, is a memorable character. The book contributes to a growing interdisciplinary literature on narrative. It will be particularly valuable to students and scholars of anthropology, folklore, performance studies, religions, and South Asian studies.

Creativity and play erupt in the most solemn of everyday worlds as individuals reshape traditional forms in the light of changing historical circumstances. In this lively volume, fourteen distinguished anthropologists explore the life of creativity in social life across the globe and within the study of ethnography itself. Contributors include Barbara A. Babcock, Edward M. Bruner, James W. Fernandez, Don Handelman, Smadar Lavie, José E. Limon, Barbara Myerhoff, Kirin Narayan, Renato Rosaldo, Richard Schechner, Edward L. Schieffelin, Marjorie Shostak, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, and Edith Turner.