Includes bibliographical references (pages 284-305) and index.

Tales, Translations, Trajectories: Literary and Linguistic Journeys in South Asia and Beyond is a collection of the late Simon Digby’s penetrating and revelatory essays on broadly literary topics.
Beginning with a substantial piece on the ‘Indian making’ of Richard Burton as an Arabist—on which Digby lectured when he was awarded the Burton Medal of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1999—subsequent chapters explore connected themes through the Arabian Nights and related tales in the Indo-Persian tradition. The second section focusses on another of his great passions—‘wonder tales’—and includes a wholly original study of the north Indian kissa tradition and the Nepali Madhumālatī.
The final section focusses on Rudyard Kipling, Kim, and other lesser known but inter-connected colonial-era stories of ‘the little boy lost’, including missionary tracts. These probing, erudite, and in many cases never-before published essays make for essential and lively reading for anyone interested in the multi-lingual and interconnected literary worlds of South Asia.

English