In the Fall of 1900, a young American anthropologist named John Swanton arrived in the Haida country, on the Northwest Coast of North America, intending to learn everything he could about Haida mythology. He spent the next ten months phonetically transcribing several thousand pages of myths, stories, histories and songs in the Haida language. Swanton met a number of fine mythtellers during his year in the Haida country. Each had his own style and his own repertoire. Two of them—a blind man in his fifties by the name of Ghandl, and a crippled septuagenarian named Skaay—were artists of extraordinary stature, revered in their own communities and admired ever since by the few specialists aware of their great legacy. Nine Visits to the Mythworld includes all the finest works of one of these master mythtellers. In November 1900, when Ghandl dictated these nine stories, the Haida world lay in ruins. Wave upon wave of smallpox and other diseases, rapacious commercial exploitation by fur traders, whalers and miners, and relentless missionization by the church had taken a huge toll on Haida culture. Yet in the blind poet’s mind, the great tradition lived, and in his voice it comes alive. Robert Bringhurst’s eloquent and vivid translations of these works are supplemented by explanatory notes that supply the needed background information.

The nine stories contained in this volume are the finest offerings from one of the last of the traditional Haida storytellers, Ghandl of the Qayahl Llaanas. Ghandl was born in 1851 in a small Haida island community off the coast of British Columbia. His world was devastated by waves of European diseases, which wiped out over ninety percent of the Haidas and robbed him of his sight. He became a skilled listener, taking in the myths, legends, and everyday stories of his people. Creatively adapting them, the blind storyteller became a master of his craft. In 1900 John Swanton, with the help of a translator, transcribed a number of Ghandl's narrative poems. Nearly all of the poems in this volume are qqaygaang, narrative poems set in the Haida mythtime of long ago. One story, ?The Names of Their Gambling Sticks,? is a qqayaagaang, a story that juxtaposes mythtime and historical time and is the property of a Haida family. Each poem creatively enacts a myth in a way that illuminates and celebrates the traditional world of the Haidas and reveals Ghandl's own acute sense of the foibles and great potential of all human beings. Meticulously and sensitively translated and annotated by Robert Bringhurst, these stories have finally been given the attention they deserve.

Being in Being contains three masterpieces by legendary Haida mythteller Skaay of the Qquuna Qiighawaay. The shortest recounts the high points of the legend of his family. The longest, Raven Travelling, is the most complex version of the story of the Raven ever recorded on the Northwest Coast. The third is The Qquuna Cycle, the largest and most complex literary work in any Native Canadian language. It is a poem of epic length and one of the true masterpieces of North American literature.

Salman Rushdie (1947 ) Has Emerged Over The Years As One Of The Most Controversial Figures Of Our Times Who Excites Contrary Feelings. But Whether Admired Or Criticized, The Fact Remains That Rushdie, With His Commitment To Struggle For Freedom Of Expression, For Speech To The Silenced, For Power To The Disempowered, Is A Writer Who Cannot Be Ignored.One Of The Major Preoccupations Of Rushdie S Art Is The Issue Of Migrant Identity. Many Of His Characters Are Migrants Drifting From Shore To Shore In Search Of Some Imaginary Homeland , And Obviously The Author Identifies Himself With His Migrant Personae. Search For Identity Is Perhaps The One Recurring Theme In Rushdie S Works, And The Themes Of Double Identity , Divided Selves And Shadow Figures Persist In His Writings As Correlative For The Schismatic/Dual Identity Of The Migrant, As Well As The Necessary Confusion And Ambiguity Of The Migrant Existence. Rushdie Describes The World From This Unique Point Of View Of The Migrant Narrator. He Is Also Conscious Of His Role In This Regard In Re-Describing The World, And Thus Creating A New Vision Of Art And Life.By Exercising What He Describes As The Migrant Writer S Privilege To Choose His Parents Rushdie Has Chosen His Inheritance From A Vast Repertoire Of Literary Parents, Including Cervantes, Kafka, Melville, Et Al.His Novels And Stories Derive Their Special Flavour From The Author S Superb Handling Of The Characteristic Postmodern Devices Like Magic Realism, Palimpsest, Ekphrasis, Etc. Rushdie Has Been Rightly Compared With Such Literary Innovators Stalwarts Of Our Times As Gunter Grass, Milan Kundera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Et Al. Readers Of The Present Volumes Will Be Taken Round The World Of Rushdie By Erudite Scholars Whose Well-Researched, Perceptive Articles Will Add Substantially To Their Enjoyment Of These Fantastic Imaginary Homelands .

" ... Documents the history and development of [Post-colonial literatures in English, together with English and American literature] and includes original research relating to the literatures of some 50 countries and territories. In more than 1,600 entries written by more than 600 internationally recognized scholars, it explores the effect of the colonial and post-colonial experience on literatures in English worldwide.

The Haida world is a misty archipelago a hundred stormy miles off the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska. For a thousand years and more before the Europeans came, a great culture flourished in these islands. The masterworks of classical Haida sculpture, now enshrined in many of the world's great museums, range from exquisite tiny amulets to magnificent huge housepoles. Classical Haida literature is every bit as various and fine. It extends from tiny jewels crafted by master songmakers to elaborate mythic cycles lasting many hours. The linguist and ethnographer John Swanton took dictation from the last great Haida-speaking storytellers, poets and historians from the fall of 1900 through the summer of 1901. His Haida hosts and colleagues had been raised in a wholly oral world where the mythic and the personal interpenetrate completely. They joined forces with their visitor, consciously creating a great treasury of Haida oral literature in written form. Poet and linguist Robert Bringhurst has worked for many years with these century-old manuscripts, which have waited until now for the broad recognition they deserve.