Synopses & Reviews
"The books line up on my shelf like bright Bodhisattvas ready to take tough questions or keep quiet company. They stake out a vast territory, with works from two millennia in multiple genres: aphorism, lyric, epic, theater, and romance."
Willis G. Regier, The Chronicle Review
"No effort has been spared to make these little volumes as attractive as possible to readers: the paper is of high quality, the typesetting immaculate. The founders of the series are John and Jennifer Clay, and Sanskritists can only thank them for an initiative intended to make the classics of an ancient Indian language accessible to a modern international audience."
The Times Higher Education Supplement
"The Clay Sanskrit Library represents one of the most admirable publishing projects now afoot. . . . Anyone who loves the look and feel and heft of books will delight in these elegant little volumes."
New Criterion
"Published in the geek-chic format."
BookForum
"Very few collections of Sanskrit deep enough for research are housed anywhere in North America. Now, twenty-five hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha, the ambitious Clay Sanskrit Library may remedy this state of affairs."
Tricycle
"Now an ambitious new publishing project, the Clay Sanskrit Library brings together leading Sanskrit translators and scholars of Indology from around the world to celebrate in translating the beauty and range of classical Sanskrit literature. . . . Published as smart green hardbacks that are small enough to fit into a jeans pocket, the volumes are meant to satisfy both the scholar and the lay reader. Each volume has a transliteration of the original Sanskrit text on the left-hand page and an English translation on the right, as also a helpful introduction and notes. Alongside definitive translations of the great Indian epics 30 or so volumes will be devoted to the Mahabhárat itself Clay Sanskrit Library makes available to the English-speaking reader many other delights: The earthy verse of Bhartrihari, the pungent satire of Jayanta Bhatta and the roving narratives of Dandin, among others. All these writers belong properly not just to Indian literature, but to world literature."
LiveMint
"The Clay Sanskrit Library has recently set out to change the scene by making available well-translated dual-language (English and Sanskrit) editions of popular Sanskritic texts for the public."
Namarupa
"The Book of Karna" relates the events of the two dramatic days after the defeat of the great warriors and generals Bhishma and Drona, in which Karna - great hero and the eldest Pándava - leads the Káurava army into combat. This first volume of "Karna" depicts mighty battles in gory detail, sets the scene for Karna's tragic death, and includes a remarkable verbal duel between Karna and his reluctant charioteer Shalya, the king of the Madras, as they hurl abuse at each other before entering the fray.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org
Review
“The books line up on my shelf like bright Bodhisattvas ready to take tough questions or keep quiet company. They stake out a vast territory, with works from two millennia in multiple genres: aphorism, lyric, epic, theater, and romance.”
“No effort has been spared to make these little volumes as attractive as possible to readers: the paper is of high quality, the typesetting immaculate. The founders of the series are John and Jennifer Clay, and Sanskritists can only thank them for an initiative intended to make the classics of an ancient Indian language accessible to a modern international audience.”
“The Clay Sanskrit Library represents one of the most admirable publishing projects now afoot. . . . Anyone who loves the look and feel and heft of books will delight in these elegant little volumes.”
“Published in the geek-chic format.”
“Very few collections of Sanskrit deep enough for research are housed anywhere in North America. Now, twenty-five hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha, the ambitious Clay Sanskrit Library may remedy this state of affairs.”
Review
"The
Clay Sanskrit Library represents one of the most admirable publishing projects now afoot. . . . Anyone who loves the look and feel and heft of books will delight in these elegant little volumes."
- New Criterion
Review
"No effort has been spared to make these little volumes as attractive as possible to readers: the paper is of high quality, the typesetting immaculate. The founders of the series are John and Jennifer Clay, and Sanskritists can only thank them for an initiative intended to make the classics of an ancient Indian language accessible to a modern international audience."
- The Times Higher Education Supplement
Review
"The Clay Sanskrit Library represents one of the most admirable publishing projects now afoot. . . . Anyone who loves the look and feel and heft of books will delight in these elegant little volumes." - New Criterion
Review
"Published in the geek-chic format."
- BookForum
Review
“Very few collections of Sanskrit deep enough for research are housed anywhere in North America. Now, twenty-five hundred years after the death of Shakyamuni Buddha, the ambitious Clay Sanskrit Library may remedy this state of affairs.”
-Tricycle,
Review
“It is rare to find as vital and sassy and smart an essayist as Juana Rodríguez. She takes you through the intersections of culture and theory in ways that compel us to rethink what queer does to Latinidad as much as what Latinidad does to queer. She shows what it means, politically and culturally, to read for the possibility of survival and affirmation. She is careful, attentive, dynamic, disorienting, and exhilarating as she reads political and cultural events, literary and theoretical texts, and the nuances of language use for a complex cultural subject in process. A fabulous read.”
-Judith Butler,Maxine Elliot Professor at the University of California at Berkeley
Review
“Mapping slippery subjects outside of fixed identities, this book is always against closure: Queer Latinidad at its best.”
-José Quiroga,author of Tropics of Desire: Interventions from Queer Latino America
Review
“Rodríguez furthers her work . . . with an engaging writing style that is poetic, personal, philosophical and theoretical. . . . This book is highly recommended.”
-Reforma Newsletter,
Review
“A fascinating critical approach to the development of the so-called latinidad, i.e., the identity of Latinos in the US. Unlike that in other ethno-queer studies, Rodríguez's data and primary texts of analysis are not literary works. Instead, this refreshing, funny, and daring book takes the reader through unexplored queer Latino communities.... Highly recommended.”
-Choice,
Synopsis
“The Book of Karna” relates the events of the two dramatic days after the defeat of the great warriors and generals Bhishma and Drona, in which Karna, great hero and the eldest Pándava, leads the Káurava army into combat. This first volume of "Karna" depicts mighty battles in gory detail, sets the scene for Karna's tragic death, and includes a remarkable verbal duel between Karna and his reluctant charioteer Shalya, the king of the Madras, as they hurl abuse at each other before entering the fray.
Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation
For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org
Synopsis
According to the 2000 census, Latinos/as have become the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. Images of Latinos and Latinas in mainstream news and in popular culture suggest a Latin Explosion at center stage, yet the topic of queer identity in relation to Latino/a America remains under examined.
Juana Mar'a Rodr'guez attempts to rectify this dearth of scholarship in Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces, by documenting the ways in which identities are transformed by encounters with language, the law, culture, and public policy. She identifies three key areas as the projects case studies: activism, primarily HIV prevention; immigration law; and cyberspace. In each, Rodríguez theorizes the ways queer Latino/a identities are enabled or constrained, melding several theoretical and methodological approaches to argue that these sites are complex and dynamic social fields.
As she moves the reader from one disciplinary location to the other, Rodríguez reveals the seams of her own academic engagement with queer latinidad. This deftly crafted work represents a dynamic and innovative approach to the study of identity formation and representation, making a vital contribution to a new reformulation of gender and sexuality studies.
About the Author
Adam Bowles translates and edits Sanskrit literature full time for the JJC Foundation, co-publishers (with NYU Press) of the Clay Sanskrit Library.