This pioneering anthology brings together 19 fascinating short stories, translated into English from Indian languagesโAssamese, Bengali, Hindi, Kashmiri, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Odia, and Urduโdemonstrating a spectrum of medical cultures in India. The thought-provoking and compelling stories address a wide array of themes and topics, including the individual and social crises during epidemics, medical pluralism, patient care, medical paternalism, disease-mongering, medicalization, and medical ethics, amongst others.
Delineating a range of diseases, healing, and allied concerns in India, the stories depict modern medical professionals such as doctors, nurses, surgeons, as well as traditional practitioners such as vaids, hakims, kavirajs, quacks, and folk healers. A few of the stories also engage with aspects of womenโs mental and physical health, including pregnancy, childbirth, abortion, and depression.
Ranging from the early 20th century stories to contemporary ones, the compendium includes pieces by canonical authors such as Tagore, Premchand, and Manto, as well as by medical practitioners such as Rashid Jahan and Shirin Shrikant Valavade. The anthology garners refreshing insights and offers a new understanding of the interrelationship of literature and medicine.
Endorsements:
โHow to heal people? Tell them a beautiful story. This book is just that.โ –ย Prof. Shah Alam Khan, AIIMS, New Delhi
โThis collection of stories is compelling and profound. It deals with medical science not in its idealised form but as it filters to the layman โฆ a collision of faith and perplexity, loss and triumph.โ –ย Dr Syed Saif Hasan, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, USA
โThrough these stories, deftly curated by Dr Qadeer, we learn about medicine in Indian literature as well as healthcare in Indian life. Here literary giants rub shoulders with physician-writers, and dais with surgeons. The patient is center-stage, and the doctor often vulnerable. The well-executed English translations help bring the lives and minds of these little-known actors to readers and scholars throughout India and across the globe.โ-ย Dr Kiran Kumbhar, Harvard University, USA
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Authors in the collection:
โขย Amar.ย โข.ย Annie Zaidi.ย โข.ย Ashok Vasishth.ย โข.ย Basant Kumar Satpathy.ย โขBhabendranath Saikia.ย โขBhibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay.ย โขJeelani Bano.ย โขย ย Kartar Singh Duggal.ย โข.ย Master Bhagwandas.ย โขย ย Premchandย ย โข.ย Rabindranath Tagoreย ย โข.ย Rajinder Singh Bediย ย โขย ย Rajshekhar Basu โParshuramโย ย โข.ย Rashid Jahan.ย โข.ย Saadat Hasan Mantoย ย โข.ย Shankar Raina.ย โข.ย Sheeba E.K.ย ย โข.ย Shirin Shashikant Valavade.ย โข.ย Zakia Mashhadi
Translators:
โข Abiral Kumar.โข. Aditya Nayak.โข. Amit Julka.โข.Debayudh Chatterjee.โข. Dhurjjati Sarma.โข. Guntasha Tulsi.โข. Haris Qadeer.โข.Kanupriya Dhingra.โข. โขKeerti Ramachandra.โข. Mohammed Afzal.โข. Neerja Mattoo.โข. Rajorshi Das.โข. Swetha Antony.โข. Zakia Mashhadi
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