Stages of Life, livre ebook

Four autobiographies of early twentieth-century actors and playwrights are presented in English translation, with substantive chapters on the Parsi theatre and strategies for reading autobiography in the Indian context.

The vanished world of India’s late-colonial theatre provides the backdrop for the autobiographies in this book. The life-stories of a quartet of early Indian actors and poet-playwrights are here translated into English for the first time. These men were schooled not in the classroom but in large theatrical companies run by Parsi entrepreneurs. Their memoirs, replete with anecdote and humor, are as significant to the understanding of the nationalist era as the lives of political leaders or social reformers.

List of Illustrations; Preface; Acknowledgments; Part 1; Chapter 1. Pioneers to Professionals: A Retrospective of the Parsi Theatre; Chapter 2. Theatrical Memoirs and the Archives of Autobiography; Part 2; Chapter 3. Narayan Prasad Betab, ‘The Deeds of Betab’; Chapter 4. Radheshyam Kathavachak, ‘My Theatre Days’; Chapter 5. Jayshankar Sundari, ‘Some Blossoms, Some Tears’; Chapter 6. Fida Husain, ‘Fifty Years in the Parsi Theatre’; Part 3; Chapter 7. Self and Subjectivity in Autobiographical Criticism; Chapter 8. Voices and Silences: Reading the Texts; Appendix 1. Historical Personages and Institutions; Appendix 2. List of Plays and Films; Glossary Hindi and Urdu Terms; Bibliography