Saturday's Child: A Journey Through an Indian Childhood,
by Daphne Economou.
Oceanida Press (Athens, 2007). ISBN 978-960-410-454-3.

From the back cover:
"Whoever has not gone away forever has no right to talk of love."
"Saturday's Child is not a conventional autobiography. It is a reflection on a long ago Indian childhood which manages, through the atmosphere of an intimate conversation, to explore and indelibly retrieve the figures, events, traumas and passions of childhood in relation to the strange adult world. It is essentially about memory and the reaches of memory, the recovery of those vivid and indefinable images that defy time and the backlog of experience and knowledge."

excerpt

I was given this book by a lady at a charity sale last Christmas, after she noticed I was collected mostly English-language books (in the end I bought about 70!). I don't remember if it was Mrs. Economou herself; it could have been, as she spoke to me in English rather than Greek, noting that this book was a 'special' one.

It is a very touching story, one with which I can identify, to a certain extent, as my family background and childhood mirrors that of the writer. The 'evacuation' during wartime is a very vivid memory for me, as well as several return journeys to Greece via ferryboat, and one time with a cargo tanker during wartime. And despite the events affecting everyone, what remains within me is the disassociation of encountering the foreignness of a place that everyone except myself perceives as returning 'home.'

Another reason that this memoir touched me is that I constantly had in mind my elder sister who, like the narrator, grew up in India & Pakistan -- the only difference being the time-frame, a decade later, in the early 1950's just after the Partition. Due to the age difference between my sister and myself, I don't know much about her childhood in the subcontinent except from the family photos. I couldn't help but place her in the narrator's role....

Reserved for the Intercultural Virtual BookBox started by apoloniaX and contraforsa.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

On its way by post to apoloniaX, who selected it from the VBB.

Received this book in the mail today.
Seems so interesting, just what I like to read - perfect!
Thank you, okyrhoe!!!

I wouldn't call this book an "Indian childhood" - it wasn't that "Indian", but rather colonial with an Indian background. Anyway, it's written in such a beautiful prose, I was deeply impressed. Daphne Economou is able to draw the reader right into her memories, her lost world, she creates such a dense atmosphere... recommendable!!!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Loveamystery just chose two Indian novels from my Asian VBB, so I think she might like this one, too. So Saturday's Child is travelling to Canada now.
Happy reading!

What a nice surprise! Thank you for this RABCK.