Anurima

This girl... is going to make it to the top with her second novel, I said to myself (as I finished Rani Dharkers first novel) ... In her, we have a clever, erudite woman who can communicate Indian thought and tradition to the Western world as few living writers of India today. Heres Anurima, the second novel Khushwant Singh spoke about. It takes us to Sonapur, once a princely state, now a bustling city, where the lives of three people, very unlike each other, collide in unusual circumstances. Theres Royina, young but stubbornly quiet; Krishan, a charismatic young artist... And then theres Elise, a Jew from Austria, who spends her last days reliving memories of Sonapurs lost glory. Memories whose dominant figure is the hauntingly beautiful Princess Anurima. Mesmerising and dream-like, Anurima is also Royinas journey into that past, a journey in which she rediscovers herself. About The Author: Rani Dharkers first novel The Virgin Syndrome was ecstatically received and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize. It was also on best-seller lists. She has a Ph.D in English Literature and was a professor of English at M.S. University of Baroda, where she was the leading light in its Shakespeare Society, directing (plays like Girish Karnads Nagamandala) and acting (in plays like Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire as Blanche Du Bois). Her column, The D(h)arker Side, had a wide readership in The Times of Indias Baroda Times. She lives in a large house in Baroda with one sister and three dogs.