A Stronger Climate

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

paperback, clean and fresh,

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, India, Asian Literature

Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was a British and American novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of film director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant.
In 1951, she married Indian architect Cyrus Jhabvala and moved to New Delhi. She began then to elaborate her experiences in India and wrote novels and tales on Indian subjects. She wrote a dozen novels, 23 screenplays, and eight collections of short stories and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Diplomatic Service and Overseas List of the 1998 New Years Honours and granted a joint fellowship by BAFTA in 2002 with Ivory and Merchant. She is the only person to have won both a Booker Prize and an Oscar.

Reviews

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent set of stories probing the the theme of the unbridgeable divide between Brits and Indians. While a lot of the British people in these stories idolize their Indian friends and/or lovers because they are bewitched by their beauty or fascinated by their culture, they invariably fail to see them as they are and often pay a heavy price for their infatuation. Mixed couples who met in London fare badly once absorbed and controlled by the Indian family. Gentle souls find that ultimately, all their Indian friends or lovers value about them is their material possessions and their status as former rulers. The most self-aware of the Brits do realize how lopsided their relationships with Indians are and couldn't care less, but even the jaded ones suffer. Although none of these stories ends in tragedy, there are no happy outcomes either. Basically, Jhabvala's message seems to be: India is no place for foreigners. She should know!

[Pragya Bhatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I had to choose a favorite author, I think this lady would have to be it. This was the second time I was reading this collection of short stories and I loved them. You can't miss her irony, her wit...and ofcourse her powers of observation. She doens't make a comment about her characters, only writes about them objectively, and leaves it to the reader to make their own opinions, which makes the stories so much better and more personal. Awesome, a great read.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really great, well-crafted short stories.