Twilight in Delhi: A novel (Champak library)

From Jacket by Marcus Abreu: "This novel, first published by the Hogarth Press, is being reissued after a gap of over twenty-five years. For the present edition the author has added an Introduction, made a few corrections in the text, and provided fresh translations of some of the verses quoted from Urdu poets by the characters in his novel. When the first edition was published in 1940 it was widely acclaimed by critics. Reviewing the novel in the Spectator, Bonamy Dobree observed: 'Taking us as it does, very skilfully, very intimately, into the details of Muslim life in Delhi during the earlier part of the century, it releases us into a different and quite complete world. Mr Ahmed Ali . . . makes us ear and smell Delhi -hear the flutters of pigeons' wings, the cries of itinerant vendors, the calls to prayer, the howls of mourners, the chants of qawals; smell jasmine and sewage, frying ghee and burning wood. And amid the smells and sounds a family has its domestic being sustained by religion and superstition, a being faintly clouded with the memory of Moghul glories, and the sense of being a conquered people. The detail, as Mr E. M. Forster says is 'new and fascinating', it is poetic and brutal, delightful and callous.'"