Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. xv, 111 p.; 21 cm.

Summary

1. Written in 1790, Hasan Shah's autobiographical romance, The Dancing Girl, is remarkable for both its lyrical prose and its fine recreation of a time, a place, and a culture - India in the 1780s, a tolerant, affable era before the full establishment of British colonial rule. The Dancing Girl tells of the doomed love of Hasan Shah (aide-de-camp to a British officer) and Khanum Jan (a courageous and gifted dancer of the courtesan caste) whose secret marriage could not prevent their separation. At Khanum Jan's death, her grief-stricken husband turned his raw emotion into a surprisingly modern, first-person narrative "without realizing", as leading Urdu novelist Qurratulain Hyder observes in the foreword to her translation (from the 1893 Urdu translation of the original Persian), "that he had become a pioneer of the modern Indian novel."

Uniform title

1. Nashtar. English

Alternative title

1. Nashtar.

Subject

1. Hasan Shah, active 18th century > Fiction
2. India > Fiction

Genre/Form

1. Fiction
2. Autobiographical fiction
3. Love stories

Owning institution

1. Harvard Library

Note

1. Originally written in Persian under the title "Nashtar" ; based on Urdu translated version.

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references (pages 105-111).

Processing action (note)

1. committed to retain