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In 1984, Zia Jaffrey traveled to Delhi, and there glimpsed a group of cross-dressing men who had walked, uninvited and unannounced, into a wedding. They sang out of tune, hurled insults at the guests, and were finally paid to leave. She learned that these often-castrated, elusive figures were known as the hijras - "neither male nor female" - or the eunuchs, of India.
They existed in thousands in every major city, were tolerated yet reviled, thought to bring good luck to newlyweds and newborns, yet also called extortionists and kidnappers.
Jaffrey set off on a journey to understand the forces of caste, poverty, sexual ambiguity, and the tradition itself that had allowed the hijras to persist into the modern age. In an investigation that points to her own sense of "otherness" in relation to Indian culture - she was born in New York of Indian extraction - Jaffrey delved into the mysteries of the hijras' closed world, uncovering details about their past, their daily lives, and their complex social structures.
In this spellbinding book - at once travelogue, history, interview, and fiction - Jaffrey invents a hybrid voice to match her subject, as she meets journalists, police commissioners, detectives, and doctors and tries to trace the hijras' tradition through layers and layers of obfuscation and denial, as well as through Hindu, Muslim, and British history. She is drawn into a labyrinthine network of connections, coverups, and contradictions as mysterious as India itself.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
Eunuchs, Eunuchen, New York Times reviewed, India, social conditions, India, description and travelPlaces
IndiaEdition | Availability |
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1
The invisibles: a tale of the eunuchs of India
1998, Phoenix, Orion Publishing Group, Limited
in English
0753804638 9780753804636
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2
The invisibles: a tale of the eunuchs of India
1998, Vintage Departures
in English
- 1st Vintage Departures ed.
067974228X 9780679742289
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3
The Invisibles
December 15, 1998, Random House Value Publishing
Hardcover
in English
0517284375 9780517284377
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4
Invisibles: A Tale of the Eunuchs of India
1997, Orion Publishing Group, Limited
in English
0297840991 9780297840992
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5
Invisibles: A Tale of the Eunuchs of India
1997, Orion Publishing Group, Limited
in English
0297840983 9780297840985
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6 |
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7 |
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8
The invisibles: a tale of the eunuchs of India
1996, Pantheon Books
in English
0679415777 9780679415770
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