Seven Summers: A Memoir

by Mulk Raj Anand

Seven summers, first drafted when Mulk Raj Anand was a student at london university but not published till 1951, recreates the events and feelings of the first seven years of the writer's life, or what he called his half unconscious and half conscious childhood' first of the seven volumes of autobiographical fiction that anand conceptualized but never completed, this book is full of memorable scenes and people observed through the eyes of a child the most impressive of them all being the coronation durbar in delhi to which our young hero is smuggled wrapped in a blanket so that the sahibs might not object to the presence of 'so discordant an element into so gorgeous a ceremony' this edition of seven summers is a special reissue of the classic autobiography to commemorate anand's birth centenary.

256 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1973

About the author

Mulk Raj Anand was an Indian writer in English, notable for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, together with R.K. Narayan, Ahmed Ali and Raja Rao, was one of the first India-based writers in English to gain an international readership. Anand is admired for his novels and short stories, which have acquired the status of being classic works of modern Indian English literature, noted for their perceptive insight into the lives of the oppressed and their analyses of impoverishment, exploitation and misfortune. He is also notable for being among the first writers to incorporate Punjabi and Hindustani idioms into English.

Reviews

[Vikas Datta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A captivating account of a childhood a time representing the best of India...

[Rahul Rastogi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sets in pre-independence India, having experiences of world from the child's view. but not really the only child's view, being a memoir it has analysis of those experience from the eye of adult (author)

[moonlit witch · Rating 3 out of 5]

i tried reading it.

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anand is an amazing writer, no doubt.
his style... just does not suit me.
i had 7 days to complete the book (library borrowed).
i put the reading off until the very last day.

[soumyadeep naskar]

Rating: 6.5/10