Mountains Painted with Turmeric
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- $31.99
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- $31.99
Publisher Description
Since its publication in the late 1950s, Mountains Painted with Turmeric has struck a chord in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Nepali readers. Set in the hills of far eastern Nepal, the novel offers readers a window into the lives of the people by depicting in subtle detail the stark realities of village life.
Carefully translated from the original text, Mountains Painted with Turmeric tells the story of a peasant farmer named Dhané (which means, ironically, "wealthy one") who is struggling to provide for his wife and son and arrange the marriage of his beautiful younger sister. Unable to keep up with the financial demands of the "big men" who control his village, Dhané and his family suffer one calamity after another, and a series of quarrels with fellow villagers forces them into exile.
In haunting prose, Lil Bahadur Chettri portrays the dukha, or suffering and sorrow, endured by ordinary peasants; the exploitation of the poor by the rich and powerful; and the social conservatism that twists a community into punishing a woman for being the victim of a crime. Chettri describes the impoverishment, dispossession, and banishment of Dhané's family to expose profound divisions between those who prosper and those who are slowly stripped of their meager possessions. Yet he also conveys the warmth and intimacy of village society, from which Dhané and his family are ultimately excluded.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nepali author Chettri's slender 1957 novel is a descriptive and evocative tale of a young Nepali peasant farmer's run of bad luck. Dhan "Dhan " Bahadur Basnet, 25, strives to support himself; his wife, Maina; a small son; and his teenage sister, Jhumavati, and buys a buffalo on interest from a moneylender to help plant his family plot. But the buffalo's calf dies, then the buffalo rampages a neighboring field, leaving Dhan responsible for damages. To pay off the debt, Dhan agrees to work another farmer's fields and offers his home and land as security. Meanwhile, Jhumavati is seduced by a soldier and gets pregnant; her shame is so overpowering that she imagines the only way out is suicide. Fate continues to mock this humble family when Dhan beats a buffalo to death for trampling his seedlings, and he and his family are cast out of the village. Chettri's novel is a moving example of social realism, and Hutt's elegant translation lends it a timeless fable-like tone with a gorgeous rendering of the natural scenery.
