The Serpent and the Rope

Rama a young scholar meets Madeleine at a university in France. Though they seem to be made for each other both alike in temperament and character at times they are divided a huge gulf separating them. Rama's trip back to India for his father's illness forcibly reminds him of the underlying contrasts between India and Europe and of a certain conflict between them in himself. When he returns to France Rama and Madeleine must face the problems in their marriage. Can they preserve their identities or must one sacrifice one's inheritance to make the relationship a success? 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.