Book Review: Raw Umber – A Memoir by Sara Rai
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Paromita Goswami reviews Sara Rai’s memoir Raw Umber (Published by Westland Books, 2023) observing how the writer leaves us with a vision of a past.
- Publisher: Westland Books
- Pages: 220
- Price: Rs.699
If I were to use one word to describe Sara Rai’s Raw Umber, it would be ‘gentle’. Indeed in a series of essays written in lyrical, meditative prose Sara Rai recreates the Allahabad and Banaras of the 1960s – the two cities where she grew up – and introduces us to the two halves of her family who mediated and structured her imagination as an emerging writer.
Allahabad-based Sara Rai is an author of Hindi and Urdu fiction, translator and editor is the grand-daughter of the stalwart litterateur Premchand, and it is interesting to see through her eyes the lives of her illustrious family members who have contributed immensely to modern Hindi and Urdu literature. In addition to Sara Rai’s essays, the book includes four stories – one each written by Premchand, Shivrani Devi, Zahra Rai, and Moghal Mahmood – which are an additional treat for the reader.
