| ashu |
Posted
on 08-Mar-04 07:35 AM
Don Messerschmidt (author) and Madhab Maharjan of Mandala Book Point (distributor)
are hosting an informal launching and book signing with selected readings
from the recently published biography:
"Against the Current: The Life of Lain Singh Bangdel:
Writer, Painter and Art Historian of Nepal
A biography by Don Messerschmidt, with Dina Bangdel
Date: Friday, March 12, 2004 at 5:30 pm
Venue: Baggikhana Hall (adjacent to Dhokaima Café), Patan Dhoka (Nepal)
The author will briefly discuss his research and read selected passages from Lain’s life. Several of Bangdel’s contemporaries will also speak on his contributions to art and literature.
The life of Lain Singh Bangdel (1919-2002), Nepalese writer, painter and art historian, was infused with a deep understanding of Nepalese art, ancient and modern, and empathy for the oppressed of his native land. His artistic works served to interpret, preserve and promote the rich cultural heritage of his country.
* As a novelist, early in his life, Bangdel altered the course of Nepali literature with realistic descriptions of poor Nepalese abroad.
* As a painter, he achieved lasting acclaim for his colourful canvasses, and his innovative leadership as the ‘Father of Modern Art in Nepal’.
* As an art historian, he toiled tirelessly to document, clarify and preserve the rapidly vanishing relics of Kathmandu Valley’s ancient past.
This is the biography of a true ‘Renaissance man’ of Nepal.
Don Messerschmidt, PhD, is an anthropologist and writer who first came to Nepal in 1963. The research and writing of this book, in collaboration with Lain Singh Bangdel and with help from his daughter, Dina, also an art historian, took a decade to complete.
Messerschmidt writes on interpreting the artist’s life that, ‘The major themes in Lain Singh Bangdel’s life are interrelated and have as much to do with the times in which he lived as with the person he sought to be and how he translated all that through brush and pen into his art and scholarship.
This individual’s several identities¾the talented boy from Darjeeling, the student painter in Paris striving to express his Nepalese identity, the universal artist he eventually became and his other professional personas as writer and art historian¾all came to life through Lain’s passionate devotion to Nepal and to the common Nepalese that his novels and paintings so poignantly depict and for whom he sought to preserve Nepal’s ancient arts. His lifelong quest was, above all, for synthesis and the erasure of all boundaries, metaphorical or real…
‘This book is as much or more Lain’s memoir than it is a formal, analytical biography…
‘The job of a biographer is to sort through the many facets of the subject’s life, establish some order, smooth over the boundaries, find and appreciate the inevitable contradictions, make the connections, then capture the image in words. In many ways it is like painting a portrait and I believe, as Lain did, that the artist’s (or writer’s) relationship with the subject is as important, if not more so, than what comes off the brush (or from the pen).
It helps greatly to choose a subject with whom rapport is easily achieved, who has dignity and wisdom, and who is interested in the endeavor, but who is neither overbearing nor conceited…’
A limited soft cover edition of Against the Current is available in Kathmandu (only) for NRs. 850,
at Mandala Book Point, on Kantipath. The book will also be available at the launching.
A hard cover edition can be ordered from
www.orchidbooks.com or
www.abebooks.com.
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