Friday, November 16, 2007

Italy: Translation of Indian editor's bestseller 'Bloodbrothers' published


Leading Indian journalist and author M.J. Akbar's successful novel 'Bloodbrothers' has just been published in Italian by one Italy's leading publishing houses, Neri Pozza.

Set in the northern Indian state of Bihar in the last decades of the 19th century, the novel has been a bestseller in India.

'Bloodbrothers tells the story of a young Hindu, Prayag, who loses his parents during the devastating famine that sweeps Bihar in 1870. After a long journey journey, Prayag accepts help from an old Muslim couple who gradually become his adoptive parents.

The novel chronicles a family saga that covers 150 years of Indian history, from colonial domination to independence and the dazzling mosaic of cultures that make up modern India.

Akbar is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Asian Age, a daily multi-edition Indian newspaper with a global perspective and editor-in-chief of The Deccan Chronicle, a news daily based in Hyderabad.

His elective, incisive editorials such that he wrote in May 2006 on Dan Brown's controversial novel 'The Da Vinci Code' have gained a worldwide audience. In the editorial, Akbar wrote: "It is interesting that in India Muslim clerics have sided with Christian priests to ban the film version of the novel."

If books which discredit the Prophet Mohammed are banned , then it is ethnical for Muslims that a movie that discredits Christ should be banned, Akbar argued.

Akbar is also the author of a number of other books. These include 'Nehru: The Making of India', 'Kashmir: Behind the Vale', 'The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict Between Islam and Christianity' and 'India: The Siege Within'.

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