{"product_id":"needle-at-the-bottom-of-the-sea-bengali-tales-from-the-land-of-the-eighteen-tides-9780520388932","title":"Needle at the Bottom of the Sea: Bengali Tales from the Land of the Eighteen Tides","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"Brave and vivid.\"--\u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThese enchanting stories from early modern Bengal reveal how Hindu and Muslim traditions converged on timeless themes of human morality, social culture, and survival.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The Bengali stories in this collection are first and foremost tales of survival. Each story in \u003ci\u003eNeedle at the Bottom of the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e underscores the need for people to work together--not just to overcome the challenges of living in the Sundarban swamps of Bengal, but also to ease hostilities born of social differences in religion, caste, and economic class. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Translated by award-winning scholar of early modern Bengali literature Tony K. Stewart, \u003ci\u003eNeedle at the Bottom of the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e brims with fantasy and excitement. Sufi protagonists travel through a world of wonder where tigers talk and men magically grow into giants, a Hindu princess falls in love with a Muslim holy man, and goddesses rub shoulders with kings and merchants. Across religion, class, and gender, what binds these fabulous stories together is the characters' pursuit of living honorably and morally in a difficult, corrupt world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTony K. Stewart\u003c\/b\u003e is Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in Humanities, Emeritus, at Vanderbilt University and a specialist in the early modern literatures of the Bengali-speaking world. His most recent work is \u003ci\u003eWitness to Marvels: Sufism and Literary Imagination\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the 2021 Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of California Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50525937008914,"sku":"9780520388932","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_c970e40e-e643-4048-9dd1-f23f4d554811.jpg?v=1731250214","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/needle-at-the-bottom-of-the-sea-bengali-tales-from-the-land-of-the-eighteen-tides-9780520388932","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}