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Bazaar
Published 2 February 2027
ISBN 9781923670211
Format Trade Paperback
Extent 192pp
AU Price $36.99
NZ Price $45.00
Categories:

Bazaar

Soliloquies from Hindustan

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
2 Feb 2027
EBook
2 Feb 2027
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As colourful, lively and unstoppable as its subject, Bazaar invites us to travel with Robert Dessaix to past, present and mythical India.

In Bazaar, his new memoir, Robert Dessaix makes four flamboyant, kaleidoscopic forays into obsession, glamour, genius and ritual, calling them ‘choreographed performances of my inner self in an Indian setting’.

Dessaix takes us back to Mogul times to meet Thomas Coryate, a parson’s son from Somerset, who walked from Constantinople to India in 1612, but we also encounter many other odd souls, including John Lang (Australia’s first published novelist), a modern Swiss yoga teacher and an Indian fortune-teller.

We visit Pushkar in Rajasthan, where Brahma makes the world out of a lotus petal; Haridwar on the Ganges to join a Hindu bathing festival; Rishikesh, the yoga capital of the world to confront the hippy-dippy; and Mussoorie in the Himalayan foothills to frolic in a raj hill-station.

A journey through time ‘more circular than linear’, Bazaar reveals its treasures through Robert Dessaix’s irresistible storytelling voice. Like Thomas Coryate, he refuses ‘to let life pass him by—not for an instant’.

This wonderful book is about the zest for being alive.
Published 2 February 2027
ISBN 9781923670211
Format Trade Paperback
Extent 192pp
AU Price $36.99
NZ Price $45.00
Categories:

About the author

Robert Dessaix

Robert Dessaix’s best-known books are his autobiography A Mother’s Disgrace, his novels Night Letters and Corfu, and the travel memoir Twilight of Love, reflecting on the life of the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev. These books have all appeared in translation in a number of languages. His most recent publications include What Days Are For (a meditation on what makes for a good life, even when death is near), The Time of Our Lives (focussing on ageing well) and Chameleon, an older man’s quirky dialogue with his younger self. From 1985 to 1994 he presented the weekly Books and Writing program on ABC Radio National. In 2022 he received the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. He lives in Hobart, Tasmania.
portrait photo of Robert Dessaix

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