In the Shade of the Golden Palace
Ālāol and Middle Bengali Poetics in Arakan
Thibaut d'Hubert
Reviews and Awards
"This text is broad and impressive in scope. D'Hubert is a multilingual scholar who traces long lines of intertextuality to many diverse origins. This makes for a rich history that crosses boundaries of religion, region, and language....D'Hubert's book interrupts modern nationalist narratives and emphasizes the long history of Muslim cultural life in the region and the interconnected histories of Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus. Many more such studies should be encouraged." - Journal of Religion
"The strength of D'Hubert's book is that it will appeal to both social historians interested in literature as well as to literary critics and literary historians ... By grounding his narrative in the world of early modern commercial and literary networks, and by implicitly valorising the world of formal diversity and multilingualism, D'Hubert necessarily raises these questions about how to account for the transition from the early modern to the modern." - Anirban Karak, South Asia Research
"Thibaut d'Hubert offers a comprehensive and sensitive account of the remarkable seventeenth-century Bengali poet Ālāol. Decentering Bengal itself—Ālāol wrote from Arakan in today's Myanmar—the author brings alive a prenational world of rich multilingual literary experimentation. Philologically deep and at the same time brimming with refreshing insights into poetry and performance, this book will change the conversation on Bengali literary history." - Allison Busch, author of Poetry of Kings
"This book represents pioneering scholarship that expands our understanding of early modern South Asian and Persianate culture in Bengal through a multidisciplinary approach. d'Hubert's familiarity with source materials and his command of languages are formidable, to say the least, which allows him to present texts in literary and social contexts in bold and comparative ways." - Sunil Sharma, Boston University
"In this wonderful book, Thibaut d'Hubert shows that what may appear as marginal poet in a marginal location — Ālāol in seventeenth century Mrauk U — was in fact a major poet whose poetry and poetics illuminate crucial questions of literary creativity, cultural transmission, and aesthetic thinking and practice at the intersection of multiple languages in the early modern world. A masterful study, this richly textured and wide-ranging book will guide generations of scholars and students into how to study literature in ways that do justice to the complexity of texts, authors, and audiences. It will be on reading lists for every course on South Asian and world literatures." - Francesca Orsini, Professor of Hindi and South Asian Literature at the University of London
