The Pomegranate Princess: And Other Tales From India

by Edward Hower

On these pages we meet adventurous princes, romantic princesses, wily peasants, tricky animals-and an abundance of monsters, djinns, gods, goddesses, and powerful magicians. In colorful, exotic settings reminiscent of The Arabian Nights, brave heroes and virtuous heroines triumph over the forces of evil, often with fantastical or comic results. These folktales, collected orally in the desert state of Rajasthan in 1986-87, are eloquent reflections of the great cultural traditions of India, and are stories that bring enchantment to audiences everywhere.

Genres: Folk Tales

136 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1991

About the author

Edward Hower has published nine novels, two books of stories, and, most recently, What Can You Do: Personal Essays and Travel Writing. His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, Smithsonian, American Scholar, and elsewhere. He has been awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and two Fulbright grants to India.

After Hower graduated from Cornell University in 1963, he lived in East Africa for three years, where he taught high school, sang in local nightclubs, and wrote his first novel, The New Life Hotel. Later, he earned a masters degree in Anthropology from the University of California, doing field work among Los Angeles street gangs.

More recently, he has taught at several American universities and has given writing workshops in Tobago, Greece, Sri Lanka, Britain, Nepal, and Key West, Florida. Many of these classes he has co-taught with his wife, the novelist the late Alison Lurie. He has lived in Ithaca, New York since 1975, and has two grown children, Dan and Lana.

abridged bio from Mr Hower's web page

Reviews

[Priyanka Champaneri]

I found the stories interesting, and some were already familiar to me as part of the Indian folktale canon, but the telling suffers given that the tales have been digested and spit back out through the perspective of someone who is not Indian. Too many things are mistranslated or over translated, and the odd language is jarring and flavors the stories in inauthentic ways that feel too much like amusements told to a colonizer—“bread cakes” instead of puri or roti is one example. Given that this book is more than two decades old one can assume the tone and word choices were products of the time, but it grates nonetheless—valuable for the bones of each story, but sorely needs updating to reflect how the source storytellers would have told each tale at the moment.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Pomegranate Princess: And Other Tales from India is a collection of folk/"fairy" tales from India. The stories vary in length from 2-7 pages and predominately easy to read. Some of the stories can be dark and unsuitable for young children. The "evil" or "disobedient" women in the tales often receive cruel fates. One is sealed alive into the palace walls. Others are buried alive in a jungle. Most of the women in these stories are servants to men. It's a stark contrast to modern culture.

The book overall was very enjoyable. I was unfamiliar with most of the tales and found them to be an interesting glimpse into ancient indian culture. They were short enough to read in between other tasks, and each began with an image to accompany the story.

I would have liked the author to expand more upon the stories. Some transitions felt rather abrupt. At the end, the book contains and appendix that cross references Types of Indic Oral Tales, by Stith Thompson and Warren E. Roberts. I'm interested to see how that compares.