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    Kaleidoscope City: A Year in Varanasi
    Unavailable
    Kaleidoscope City: A Year in Varanasi
    Unavailable
    Kaleidoscope City: A Year in Varanasi
    Ebook202 pages4 hours

    Kaleidoscope City: A Year in Varanasi

    By Piers Moore Ede

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    From the acclaimed, prize-winning author of Honey and Dust: a captivating memoir of a year spent in the holy city of Varanasi

    'Moore Ede is highly attuned to the sensory experiences which make travel writing come alive' Giles Foden

    'Brims with warmth, humility and curiosity … The rhythms of life and death by the river are vividly rendered in Moore Ede's fluid prose' Times Literary Supplement

    Piers Moore Ede first fell in love with Varanasi when he passed through it on his way to Nepal. In the decade that followed, it continued to exert its pull on him and so he returned there to live – to discover
    what it is that makes the spiritual capital of India so unique.

    In this intoxicating city, where funeral pyres smoulder beside the river in which thousands of pilgrims bathe, and holiness and corruption walk side by side, Piers discovers a remarkable interplay between death and life, light and dark.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateFeb 26, 2015
    ISBN9781408835425
    Unavailable
    Kaleidoscope City: A Year in Varanasi
    Author

    Piers Moore Ede

    Piers Moore Ede has worked as a farmer, boat driver, surfing instructor, poetry teacher, and baker. He has travelled widely, and contributed to many literary, travel and environmental publications including the Daily Telegraph, the Times Literary Supplement, Ecologist, Traveller and Earth Island Journal. He is the author of Honey and Dust, winner of a D.H. Lawrence Prize for Travel Writing, and All Kinds of Magic. www.piersmooreede.com

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    • 4/5
      Varanasi is one of the cities in the world that has been inhabited for around four thousand years. Situated on the Ganges, it is the focal point for a number of religions; the two patriots of Jains were born there, it is where the Buddha preached his first sermon and for Hindus there is no place more revered. Those four millennia have seen a lot of history too, invasions, colonial rule and independence have all influenced the city.

      This is a huge city too, home to 2.5 million people, over the course of a year it will welcome 5 million more. Thousands bathe each day in the sacred, polluted Ganges. It is the destination at the end of people’s lives too; they come here to die, or to be cremated on the pyres alongside the river. On top of all that the city is the centre of a large silk and textile industry. There is a darker side too, not only is corruption endemic, but there is a thriving drug trade and prostitution is rife.

      It is this city though, that draws Ede back there to stay for a year. He spends some time with people to bring the city alive to us reading it. The book is intense as I imagine the city must be and Ede’s writing manages to transport you to this madly alive and vivid city. You prickle from the heat, the smells and noise assault your senses, you know that this place is where religion, culture, life and death all come together in one swirling mass of humanity. It is a book that is well worth reading, he has managed to bring a human perspective to a city that is one of the largest on earth. Will definitely be reading his other books.

      First book from the #WorldFromMyArmchair too.