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Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History. Edited by RUTH VANITA and SALEEM KIDWAI. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. 352 pp. $55.00 (cloth).
If, among other things, an anthology is meant to provoke the reader into wanting to learn more about a subject, Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai's book succeeds admirably. It is a deftly composed and often moving exploration of literary and documentary representations of same-sex love from ancient to contemporary times. The editors' task is ambitious, and, as one reads through the volume, a sense of the magnitude of the undertaking grows on one, as does appreciation for the authorial and editorial skills of Vanita and Kidwai.
The anthology is divided into four parts. The section on "Ancient Indian Materials" contains selections from Vyasa's Mahabharata, Manikantha Jataka, Vishnu Sharma's Panchatantra, and Vatsyayana's Kamasutra. Subsequent sections are "Medieval Materials in the Sanskritic Tradition" (puranic and other texts), "Medieval Materials in the Perso-Urdu Tradition," and "Modern Indian Materials" from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (with poetry, literary extracts, and selections from memoirs and letters). The editors state: "We aim to demonstrate the antiquity and transformation through time of the ideas whose history we are tracing" (p. xvii).
A glass half full? Nearly sixty selections (almost...