Acquire Today The Invisibles: A Tale Of The Eunuchs Of India Put Together By Zia Jaffrey Available Through Kindle
book about the Hijra caste in India, While traveling there a few years ago I met some of these people so was hoping to learn about them, The book, however, revealed more about the author than her subject, A bit hard to get past the author voice in places but her writing soared when describing the people she met in her research.
I'd like to read her fiction, I found this book to be a drag, The writer claims to be sympathetic but comes across as arrogant, judgmental and distant, You 'sort of' learn about the hijras but she continually casts doubt on what her informers tell her, She brings all of her outsider personality she was born and raised in America and very little of her insider Indian heritage,
If you really want to know about the society of India's eunuchs I would seek out an anthropological study and skip this rather poorly written smug piece of pseudoinvestigative journalism.
The book is too lengthy and very detailed, but I like the way Jaffrey puts history texts in between before every chapter, The history evidences are interesting to read, Although the subtitle of this text reads 'A Tale of the Eunuchs of India," I would argue that this book is no solitary tale Zia Jaffrey gently and gracefully weaves multiple, sometimes contradictory, tales together here.
The tales she shares are not onesided or predictable, nor are they complete, and I was relieved that she doesnt try to convince us otherwise.
She brings us along on a murky journey, and we see her engage with hijras directly and indirectly, through delicate and rarely heated, though sometimes tense and obtrusive conversations, independent research, and hearsay from a wide range of people who have varying connections to, and oft biased thoughts about, hijra communities.
First hand, we watch her succumb to the way in which India works and find her way through a labyrinth of names and connections.
I appreciated her sense of humor as she is being waxed and prodded and asked about marriage in Delhi, she jokes, though I suppose theres more here than comedy, that she has come to "study the culture, not to become one of its
victims.
" In gathering stories and oral histories, she encounters blatant falsehoods, contradictions, discouragement, and an overall muddiness that make us realize how impossible it is to know any 'truths' about this subculture.
It just doesn't matter what your intel is insider or outsider, That said, we still learn a bit about hijras place in society, that they arent a monolith, and that there are complex ways others judge, value, and regard them, that is, if they pay notice to them at all.
Jaffrey embraces the elusive and presents both the outrageous and mundane, offering insight without making declarations, Also, I think there are at least two times where she calls out some willfully ignorant meanies, who are talking smack about hijras, on their bullshit.
Its great.
This is a book for the pandemic, when most of us are not flying across the world or regularly seeing or engaging with people who are much different than we are.
Whether youre curious about hijras, thinking of taking a class with Zia, . . which is what drew me to this book or simply wanting a playbyplay from a beautiful writer seeking to cover and explore something that strikes her curiosity, you may enjoy it.
hii I actually didn't finish this book, I got maybe/of the way through, It's not BAD, it's just, as other reviewers have noted, not all that interesting, Instead of hearing about the eunuchs of India, we hear about Zia Jaffrey's quest to find out about the eunuchs of India, What did she find out From what I read, not much, At least there are not many definitive answers, and instead of discussing it in a more historical or factual or academic fashion, it's a lot of "this person presenting as a hijra said this, and this other one said that, and this person who watched a ceremony said this but this other person who had a hijra in their home said that, and then this primary source, who also happened to be a not from the culture they were observing, and b bigoted, said THIS.
" Well all righty then. What is YOUR take on it, Zia Jaffrey
Also she really could have done with researching trans communities in the US.
Mostly just for accuracy's sakeshe conflates all kinds of different notions sexual orientation, gender identity, assigned sex, gender presentation/expression, and then like, castration and pedophilia and kidnapping I was like, wut and it seemed muddled to me.
But also so that her target audience which I assume is Englishspeaking as the book is written in English and she is from the US herself would have that shared vocabulary to go on.
There was one time where a guy said that herpes was "homosexual" or something, and she shut him down pretty fast, but I could've done with more of that attitude throughout the book.
This seems like it could have been really interesting from a historical perspective, or from an enthographic "how hijras live now" perspective, but that sort of information is apparently really hard to come by, so instead this is like apage question mark.
A fascinating book about the hijra, the traditional community of, . . well some, not all eunuchs and transgendered dancers/entertainers in India, I read "The Invisibles" in law school, where I was working as a researcher for one of my professors, who was examining the law codes developed by marginalised and outcast communities, and Zia Jaffrey's account while not that of a professional ethnographer is sympathetic and welldone.
In the twenty years since Jaffrey's book first appeared, Indian hijra have obtained some political visibility, but also seen many of their traditional communities and roles disrupted by the economic and social changes ofstc.
India. Still very much worth reading, both as an account of the hijra themselves and as a consideration of nonWestern ideas of gender and gender stability.
How can a book about a long cultural history of genderbending eunuchs be boring Somehow, that's what I remember about this book, I enjoy Indian works. This book was the first time that I had heard about the eunuchs and their role in Indian society, I have seen them many times now in other stories such as "Behind the Beautiful Forevers", by Boo, In search of the practices and beginnings of the Hijrahs of India, the author travels to parts of India to meet and talk with the unique community.
.This could have been so good, But there was too much focus on the author's struggle to get the information she needed, I also wonder if the parts I found confusing would have been less so if my cultural background was of Indian origin, But alas. Much of the language and conversations were very difficult to follow, I would have appreciated a glossary with translations or even footnotes, That being said, no author is obligated to write with the foreigner's gaze in mind, Maybe one wasn't meant to grasp every detail, Maybe the intent was to reflect how she sometimes struggled to understand a people/culture she identified with more through obligation than experience.
Still, the difficulties I had took away from my experience and what I wanted to learn, I found this book to be a helpful insight into another culture, one that I had not read about before, I appreciated the author's frustration as she was trying to find out about the facts/myths regarding the Eunuchs/hijras of this subculture that has existed for years in India.
This was a great read, It was a long time ago that I read it first, but it paints a very clear vision of a subgroup in the Indian society.
It was the the introduction to a long stream of books on eunuchs, In this superb work of investigative reporting, Zia Jaffrey pursues the riddle of India's most elusive subculture, the crossdressing and oftencastrated figures known as "hijras" whose very name means neither male nor female.
Are the hijras lucky or dangerous Are they a nurturing community of outcasts or a criminal network that kidnaps and mutilates recruits Do they number in the thousands or in the millions As she talks with policemen, a unionizer of eunuchs, and with the hijras themselves, Jaffrey unravels veils of rumor and deception to locate the nature of our sexual and social thresholds, and the people who dwell on them.
Deeply resonant, uniquely insightful, The Invisibles is an enthralling work,
"A magnificent journey, Jaffrey writes about this fascinating and delicate subject with human understanding and warmth, "Ryszard Kapuscinski
"Sensitively written, . . eloquent and compassionate. "New York Times Book I don't know why, but for some reason I couldn't get into this book, The subject matter is interesting, the writer is relatively engaging, and it's written for the average person in other words: not a lot of snooty academic jargon, not a lot of theory, etc.
, but for some reason I just couldn't get into the book, I might give this book another chance some other time, I thought it would be an interesting read, However, the book lacked structure and coherency, Poor narrative. Hmmm, what to say. I found this study of the hijras, basically eununchs, of India very thoughtprovoking, It made me think of the plight of transsexuals and similiar in our western world and the differences between the two societies, not that I pretend to know anything personally.
Hijras live a very complex life in comlex "family" situations and there is much discussion of truths and untruths, The author, who incidently is the daughter of Madhur Jaffrey, has done a lot of onsite research, Ultimately the reader is left with more questions than answers, What a strange and unusual journey Zia Jaffrey goes on to undercover and share with us the mostly hidden world of modern eunuchs in India.
Through a complex web of personal associations and interviews she shares her discoveries along with archival documents from others from past centuries to shed light on an oftenhidden group of people, who, believe it or not, still exist.
Zia Jaffrey is the author of The Invisibles: A Tale of the Eunuchs of India, and is writing a book on AIDS in South Africa.
She has covered the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the global AIDS pandemic, South Africas Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, and Pakistan under General Musharraf, and has written cover stories, features, and book reviews for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Nation, The Village Voice, Harpers Bazaar, and Mother Jones, among others.
She teaches international fiction and non fiction in The New Schools M, F. A. program. from newschool. edu Zia Jaffrey is the author of The Invisibles: A Tale of the Eunuchs of India, and is writing a book on AIDS in South Africa.
She has covered the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the global AIDS pandemic, South Africas Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, and Pakistan under General Musharraf, and has written cover stories, features, and book reviews for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Nation, The Village Voice, Harper's Bazaar, and Mother Jones, among others.
She teaches international fiction and non fiction in The New Schools M, F. A. program. from newschool. edu sitelink.