Essays on India

Book excerpt: With his typically perceptive insights, Levi writes evocatively on his experiences in India, including his interview with Pandit Nehru, his tour of a tent city at a political convention, and his meeting with a Hindu nationalist party. This only available edition of a fascinating account of his impressions of the subcontinent is a valuable addition to the tradition of Western writing on India, made all the more fascinating by the influence that Levi’s famous memoir of exile Christ Stopped at Ebolihas had on many Indian intellectuals. Published in 1945, that account of his time spent in exile in Italy after being arrested in connection with his political activism introduced the trend toward social realism in post-war Italian literature.