Home Thoughts from Abroad: Distant Visions of Israel in Contemporary Hebrew Fiction

Grossman

Oz, Amos

Stavans, Ilan

In seventh-century Arabia, Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussain, <br>sacrificed his life and his family members and companions in the desert of<br>Karbala, Iraq, to resist the debauched ruler Yazid. In twentieth-century India, <br>when the communal conflict was at its peak, Premchand wrote a play about this<br>pivotal event of Islamic history and transformed it into a nationalist narrative.<br>This first-ever English translation of Premchand's outstanding play Karbala<br>(1924) is an illuminating blend of historical facts and imagination. It reveals<br>Premchand's profound understanding of the communal conflict in early<br>twentieth-century India and his unique way of imagining the nation, in tune<br>with Gandhian principles of communal harmony and co-existence of religions.

Sutherland, Kathryn

Freedman, Jonathan