Cat and Shakespeare The

A teasing comedy of manners exploring metaphysical themes'---Telegraph The Cat and Shakespeare is a gentle almost teasing fable of two friends. Govindan Nair an astute down-to-earth philosopher and clerk tackles the problems of routine living with extraordinary common sense and gusto and his refreshing and unorthodox conclusions continually panic Ramakrishna Pai Nair's friend neighbour and narrator of the story. This evocative novel brings alive the raw texture of Indian life and delights in its humour. '[A] pathbreaker of Indian writing in English'---Guardian Review A teasing comedy of manners exploring metaphysical themes. --The Telegraph About the Author Raja Rao (1909-2006) a path-breaker of Indian writing in English was born in Hassan Mysore. After he graduated from Madras University he went on to the University of Montpellier in France on a scholarship. He moved to the United States in 1966 where he taught at the University of Texas at Austin until 1983 when he retired as emeritus professor. A powerful and profound writer and a superb stylist Rao successfully and imaginatively appropriated English for the Indian narrative. He was honoured with India's second-highest civilian award the Padma Vibhushan in 2007 the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1964 and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1988. R. Parthasarathy is a poet and translator. The author of the long poem 'Rough Passage' he edited the influential anthology Ten Twentieth- Century Indian Poets. His translation of the fifth-century Tamil epic the Cilappatika¯ram was awarded the 1995 Sahitya Akademi Award. He is a professor emeritus of English and Asian studies at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs New York. He was Raja Rao's editor from 1974 to 1998.