''The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin'' is an autobiography of anthropologist

Verrier Elwin Harry Verrier Holman Elwin (29 August 1902 – 22 February 1964) was a British-born Indian anthropologist, ethnologist and tribal activist, who began his career in India as a Christian missionary. He first abandoned the clergy, to work with Ma ...

published by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

. The book was published posthumously in May 1964, three months after the death of Elwin. It was awarded the

Sahitya Akademi Award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...

in 1965.

Publication

Jonathan Cape and Hutchinson were interested in publishing Elwin's autobiography and had sent letters to Elwin but he decided to approach

. For book's title, Elwin requested his publisher R. E. Hawkins of Oxford University Press for suggestions and Hawkins put forward twenty-five different alternatives including ''Pilgrim's Way to NEFA'', ''From Merton to Nongthymai'', ''Khadi, Cassock, and Gown'', ''Into the Forests, Over the Hills'', ''Anthropologist at Large'', ''Philanthropologist'', ''No Tribal Myth'', and ''My Passage to Tribal India''. But they finalized the title ''The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin'', "to make evident lwin'sprimary loyalty and identification". The book was sent to press for the publication on 9 August 1963. When Elwin asked Hawkins for comments, Hawkins mentioned that the book does not reveal much about Elwin's personal life like "the struggle with Christianity, the rejection of civilization, the marriage to a tribal life, the final adoption of Indian citizenship." He wrote to Elwin that the Western readers "would like to know far more than you tell him here about the reasons which led you to take these steps, and the mental anguish that must have accompanied many of them". However, Elwin died on 22 February 1964 at the age of 61, before his autobiography could be published. The book was published posthumously in May 1964.

Awards

The autobiography was awarded the

in 1965. The citation for the award mentioned that the book is written "with sincerity, courage and charm, revealing a mind in which Western and Indian idealism were uniquely blended" and called it an "outstanding contribution to contemporary Indian writing in English".

Reception and review

Indian historian and writer Ramachandra Guha mentioned that after reading two of Elwin's books, ''The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin'' and ''Leaves from the Jungle: Life in a Gond Village'', inspired him to do Ph.D. in sociology. Poet and critic

Nissim Ezekiel Nissim Ezekiel (16 December 1924 – 9 January 2004) was an Indian Jewish poet, actor, playwright, editor and art critic. He was a foundational figure in postcolonial India's literary history, specifically for Indian Poetry in English. He ...

noted that the autobiography is written with "great charm and persuasion" and further mentioned that " lwin'sfinal position on all matters is made absolutely clear. There is not a single ambiguous sentence in

he book He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

and yet odogmatic pronouncement in it". '' Kirkus Reviews'' mentions that "the descriptions of the Indian tribes are interesting enough, but the dose of home-spun personal philosophy is rather heavy". It was also noted that Elwin's personal life is not much discussed in the book and there are larger gaps in the narrative.

References

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tribal World of Verrier Elwin, The Indian autobiographies 1964 non-fiction books Oxford University Press books Sahitya Akademi Award-winning works