Kirin Narayan (born November 1959) is an Indian-born American anthropologist, folklorist and writer.
Early life, education, and career
Narayan is the daughter of Narayan Ramji Contractor, a civil engineer from Nashik, and Didi Kinzinger, a German-American "artist, decorator, and builder of sustainable housing". Narayan was born in Bombay, attended school in India and came to the United States in 1976.
Narayan received a BA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College and went on to post-graduate studies in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving her PhD in 1987. She taught anthropology and South Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1993 she was named a Guggenheim Fellow in the field of anthropology and cultural studies. She is a professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University.
Books
In 1989, Narayan published Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels: Folk Narrative in Hindu Religious Teaching. It received the Victor Turner Prize from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology and was co-winner of the Elsie Clews Prize for Folklore from the American Folklore Society.
In 1994, she published the novel Love, Stars and All That. Reviewing the novel, Indian poet and editor Dom Moraes praised the work, saying:
"This is a novel well received and achieved: it is also intelligent, excellently written, and revelatory of what it is like to be an American born in India. It makes one feel Narayan is that very rare bird, a born writer, and that she may fly far."
Narayan published Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon: Himalayan Foothill Folktales in 1997. In 2002 a new edition of the first collection of Indian folk tales in English, Mary Frere's Old Deccan Days, was published with an introduction by Narayan. In 2007, she published a memoir My Family and Other Saints. An autobiographical work in which "Gods, gurus and eccentric relatives compete for primacy", The New York Times described the work as an "enchanting memoir". Its title is a reference to Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals, a childhood inspiration to Narayan.
In her 2012 work Alive in the Writing: Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov, Narayan used Anton Chekhov's Sakhalin Island as inspiration for an exploration of ethnographic writing. James Wood, writing of his 'Books of the Year' in The New Yorker, described it as a "brief and brilliant book" that he read "with huge pleasure". In 2016 Narayan published Everyday Creativity: Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills, about women's traditions of singing in the Kangra Valley.
References
- ^ Sharma, Maya (2000). "Kirin Narayan". In Emmanuel Sampath Nelson (ed.). Asian American Novelists: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 257. ISBN 0313309116.
- "Professor Kirin Narayan". ANU Researchers - Research Services Division. Australian National University. Retrieved 30 August 2017.
- ^ Sanga, Jaina C (2003). South Asian Novelists in English: An A-to-Z Guide. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 186. ISBN 0313318859.
- ^ Oh, Seiwoong (2015). Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature. Infobase Learning. pp. 556–57. ISBN 978-1438140582.
- "Kirin Narayan". John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
- ^ "Professor Kirin Narayan". Australian National University.
- Reviews of Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels:
- Champion, Catherine (January–March 1991). L'Homme. 31 (117): 163–164. JSTOR 40589866.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Flueckiger, Joyce Burkhalter (Spring 1991). The Journal of American Folklore. 104 (412): 239–241. doi:10.2307/541251. JSTOR 541251.
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Zarrilli, Phillip B. (Spring 1991). Asian Theatre Journal. 8 (1): 91–92. doi:10.2307/1124168. JSTOR 1124168.
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Gold, Ann Grodzins (August 1991). American Ethnologist. 18 (3): 621–622. doi:10.1525/ae.1991.18.3.02a00290. JSTOR 645615.
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Pechilis, Karen (October 1991). The Journal of Religion. 71 (4): 616. doi:10.1086/488755. JSTOR 1203997.
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Handelman, Don (1991). Asian Folklore Studies. 50 (1): 262–263. doi:10.2307/1178211. JSTOR 1178211.
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- Champion, Catherine (January–March 1991). L'Homme. 31 (117): 163–164. JSTOR 40589866.
- "SHA Prize Winners". Society for Humanistic Anthropology.
- Reviews of Love, Stars and All That:
- "Review". Kirkus Reviews. November 1993.
- Grewal, Indepal; Motooka, Wendy; Lee, Jee Yeun; So, Christine; Srikanth, Rajini; Young, Morris; Yoo, David; Ropp, Steven Masami; Fong, Joe (January 1994). "Book Reviews". Amerasia Journal. 20 (3): 95–118. doi:10.17953/amer.20.3.250625417277t57l.
- Ruta, Suzanne (May 1994). "A Time for Stories". The Women's Review of Books. 11 (8): 12. doi:10.2307/4021845. JSTOR 4021845.
- Moraes, Dom (31 July 1994). "Coming of Age: A Fine, Funny Debut". India Today. p. 95. Archived from the original on 20 February 2014.
- Muthyala, John (Summer 1998). MELUS. 23 (2): 205–206. doi:10.2307/468021. JSTOR 468021.
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- Moraes (1994)
- Reviews of Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon:
- Blackburn, Stuart (February 1998). The Journal of Asian Studies. 57 (1): 257–259. doi:10.2307/2659083. JSTOR 2659083. S2CID 161514624.
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Goldberg, Christine (May–August 1998). Journal of Folklore Research. 35 (2): 157–160. JSTOR 3814754.
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Chandola, Anoop (September 1999). American Anthropologist. 101 (3): 683–684. doi:10.1525/aa.1999.101.3.683. JSTOR 683895.
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Bailly, Constantina Rhodes (April 2000). International Journal of Hindu Studies. 4 (1): 80–81. JSTOR 20106693.
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
- Blackburn, Stuart (February 1998). The Journal of Asian Studies. 57 (1): 257–259. doi:10.2307/2659083. JSTOR 2659083. S2CID 161514624.
- Review of Old Deccan Days:
- Haring, Lee (2004). Marvels & Tales. 18 (2): 301–303. doi:10.1353/mat.2004.0036. JSTOR 41388715. S2CID 162163807.
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
- Haring, Lee (2004). Marvels & Tales. 18 (2): 301–303. doi:10.1353/mat.2004.0036. JSTOR 41388715. S2CID 162163807.
- Reviews of My Family and Other Saints:
- Grimes, William (26 December 2007). "A Groovy Pad Full of Gods and Gurus". The New York Times.
- Patel, Bhaichand (10 November 2008). "An Old Haunt: A tale of turbulent adolescence and life in a bicultural household, we visit '60s Bombay and a mystic's haven". Outlook.
- Kuortti, Joel (August 2009). Book reviews. Contemporary South Asia. 17 (3): 347–348. doi:10.1080/09584930903109018. S2CID 218546357.
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Dhanani, Dimple (April 2013). International Journal of Hindu Studies. 17 (1): 110–112. JSTOR 24713569.
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- Grimes (2007)
- Sharma, Sanjukta (19 September 2008). "A family 'we-moir'". Livemint.
- Reviews of Alive in the Writing:
- Staples, James (December 2012). The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 18 (4): 903–905. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9655.2012.01798_17.x. JSTOR 23321472.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Ecke, Laurie (2013), "Alive in the Reading: Nayaran and Chekhov", Qualitative Report, 18 (42), Nova Southeastern University: 1–3
- Fine, Elizabeth (March 2013). "Book review". Journal of Folklore Research.
- Behar, Ruth (April 2013), "Forgive Yourself, Dear Writer", Current Anthropology, 54 (2): 244–245, doi:10.1086/669935, JSTOR 10.1086/669935, S2CID 142151214
- Herzfeld, Michael (August 2013). "Book review". American Anthropologist. 115 (3): 528–529. doi:10.1111/aman.12038_13.
- Rivera, Francisco (2016), Anthropologie et Sociétés, 40 (3): 314, doi:10.7202/1038653ar
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- Staples, James (December 2012). The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 18 (4): 903–905. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9655.2012.01798_17.x. JSTOR 23321472.
- Wood, James (17 December 2012). "Books of the Year". The New Yorker.
- Reviews of Everyday Creativity:
- McNair, James (14 December 2016). "Goddesses of song: the women singers of the Western Himalayas". The National (Abu Dhabi).
- Davis, Coralynn V. (2017). "Book review" (PDF). Asian Ethnology. 76 (2): 418–421.
- Krishnan, Shweta (2018). "Book review". Anthropological Quarterly. 91 (1): 421–425. doi:10.1353/anq.2018.0016. S2CID 149618364.
- Dellenbaugh, Ginger; Rahaim, Matthew (April 2018). "Reviews". Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies. 3 (1): 95–100. doi:10.1386/jivs.3.1.95_5.
- Stirr, Anna (May 2018). Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 24 (2): 413–414. doi:10.1111/1467-9655.12845.
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Manuel, Peter (July 2018). South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. 41 (3): 700–701. doi:10.1080/00856401.2018.1489759. S2CID 149992303.
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: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link) - Dalzell, Victoria M. (2019). Notes. 75 (4): 677–679. doi:10.1353/not.2019.0046. S2CID 198046726.
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External links
- Kirin Narayan publications indexed by Google Scholar
- Photo of Narayan as an infant with her mother, part of a 1960 photo-essay "East-West wife" by Marilyn Silverstone in Coronet magazine
- 1959 births
- Living people
- Writers from Mumbai
- Sarah Lawrence College alumni
- University of California, Berkeley alumni
- University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
- American women writers of Indian descent
- American women anthropologists
- American novelists of Indian descent
- American women novelists
- Women writers from Maharashtra
- Novelists from Wisconsin
- Indian emigrants to the United States
- Academic staff of the Australian National University
- American people of German descent
- Indian people of German descent
- American expatriate academics
- 20th-century American anthropologists
- 21st-century American anthropologists
- 20th-century American women writers
- 21st-century American women writers
- 20th-century Indian women writers
- 21st-century Indian women writers
- 20th-century American non-fiction writers
- 21st-century American non-fiction writers
- 20th-century Indian non-fiction writers
- 21st-century Indian non-fiction writers
- American women academics
- Himalayan studies