Madison Morrison

HAPPENING

Happening, published by Sterling Publishers Private Limited (New Delhi, 1997) ISBN: 81 207 1989 1 (352 pages, hardcover) Rs. 500

"A compendious study of India, Happening belongs to a nineteenth-century tradition that embraces Champollion's Description de l'Egypte and Walter Hamilton's Description of Hindostan. Unlike their encyclopedic and interpretive methods, however, Morrison's technique is modern: cinematic registration, personal reminiscence, the interweaving of text with intertext, all to evoke ancient, medieval, colonial and present day India. With access to the University of Madras' collection of English language materials, the author spent a year transcribing sources that include classical text and commentary, social and political history, anthropological and cultural analysis. To this he adds his own experience of a great civilization." (from the inside front jacket flap)