000 01488nam a22001577a 4500
008 220420b2021 |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020 _a9789389253474
082 _aFiction GAU-A
100 _aGautier, Ari
245 _aThinnai /
_cAri Gautier
260 _aIndia
_bHachette India
_c2021
300 _a188p.
365 _aINR
_b399.00
500 _aIf there was anything our neighbours envied us, it was our thinners. 'The working-class district of Kurusukuppam is not the Pondicherry of tourist brochures. Here, French soldiers, Tamil activists, Creoles, and communists live in boisterous and comical equanimity. But life in Kurusukuppam is upturned by the arrival of a curious tramp, Gilbert Thaata, a wizened Frenchman who has seen hard times. Settling down on the narrator's verandah, his thinner, Gilbert Thaata, begins to earn his keep by recounting the tale of the rise and fall of his family's fortunes as the custodians of a mysterious diamond, the Stone of Sita. The fanciful story that unfolds stretches across centuries and encompasses the history of France's colonial legacy in India. His entranced listeners cannot help but ask: who is this older man, and how did he fall on such misfortune? Masterfully translated from the French original by Blake Smith, Ari Gautier's The Thinnai offers a panoramic view of Pondicherry's past and the whimsical eccentricities of its present and shines a light on the quirks of history that have come to define us.
650 _aFiction
999 _c79050
_d79050