Leslie de Noronha

Last updated

Leslie de Noronha was a writer of Goan origin. He is one of the early Indian writers in English. [1] He was also a medical doctor and a music critic. [2]

Contents

Noronha has himself described The Dew Drop Inn as "not a political or historical story, neither a love story" and has said that he conceived of the idea and planned it in 1958, while in New York. He added: "Then, on December 18th, 1961, the Indian militia entered Goa and, after 36 hours that electrified the world, the mighty Portuguese Empire came crashing down with the maximum of drama possible. And I found myself with the MS [manuscript] of what was overnight virtually a historical novel." [3]

Critic Peter Nazareth, who wrote a review of The Dew Drop Inn that was published in World Literature Today , said: "It is a sequel to The Mango and the Tamarind Tree: Raoul in the first novel gives up his lover (born in Kenya of a caste lower than his) because of pressure by his mother. In the sequel, Raoul regrets having given her up and he has now become gay --- there are explicit descriptions of the gay scene in Bombay. He dies, near the end, in a plane crash." Some critics suggest that Raoul's story parallels the author's.

Sandeep Bakshi describes the novel thus, "set in both independent India and Britain, it ("The Dew Drop Inn") intertwines the stories of a wide array of people, and functions, in a manner akin to Scott’s novels, as an archive of the end-of-the-Raj society." [4]

The author was a doctor in England. He believes in the advice he once received there: that a trivial incident can change a life. This happens in the book too. Shantimarg is a fictitious montage of "all Himalayan hill stations". Medical colleges at Bombay and London get featured here too. This book in part is "to a great extent autobiographical, if highly dramatized". The Mango and the Tamarind Tree was Noronha's earlier novel.

Another of his publications, Poems, was published by the Writers' Workshop in 1965.

Agarwal and Sinha comment: "With a growing interest in Indian English literature, there has been a sudden spurt of fiction, many of them first novels during the nineteen seventies. Notable among those novelists are — BK Karanjia, Leslie de Noronha, Timeri Murari, ...". [5]

Donna J Young describes his novel The Mango and the Tamarind Tree as offering an "insight into the feelings of Goans who had a Portuguese identity that changed into a Goan one after the end of the colonial period. On the surface, the novel deals with the affluent but disintegrating Albuquerque family. In reality, De Noronha is showing the disintegration of Portuguese identity in Goa by having the novel’s main character Raoul break with many traditions. He refuses to go through an arranged marriage, falls in love with a woman from a lower class, and he sells the family home after his mother’s death. Raoul’s heritage is his enemy. It kept him from marrying the woman he loved and from the international career he loved. By giving up his traditions Raoul symbolizes Goans giving up Portuguese traditions and shows the upheaval that frequently accompanies major political change and the reaction to it...."

His work is included in The Golden Treasury of Indo-Anglian Poetry, 1828-1965, edited by Vinayak Krishna Gokak. [6]

Works

His works include:

Related Research Articles

— Opening lines from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, first published this year

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Aurora Couto</span> Indian writer and educator (1937–2022)

Maria Aurora Couto was an Indian writer and educator from Goa. She was best known for her book Goa: A Daughter's Story and for promoting literature and ideas within Goa and beyond. She lived in the north Goan village of Aldona. In addition to her books, she wrote for newspapers and magazine, and also taught English literature at Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi and Dhempe College of Panjim. She also helped start the DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas in 2008.

Konkani cuisine is the cuisine of the Saraswat Brahmins from the Konkan region on the western coast of India. Konkani cuisine differs within the Saraswat Brahmin subsects and within the Konkan-Canara region. Konkani cuisine originally hails from the Konkan region including Uttara Kannada, Udupi district, Dakshina Kannada, Damaon, and Goa, India. Konkani cuisine is popular served in many restaurants throughout the western coast of India, and especially in the cities of Bombay and Bangalore. Each variation has its unique flavour and makes uses of different vegetables and fruits available in the region. Konkani cuisine is usually pesco-vegetarian, except acharyas and purohits who follow a strictly saatvik vegetarian diet. According the Konkani folklore, fish, meats are regarded as sea vegetables. Historically, they have refrained from eating any terrestrial animals in general.

Goan cuisine consists of regional foods popular in Goa, an Indian state located along India's west coast on the shore of the Arabian Sea. Rice, seafood, coconut, vegetables, meat, bread, pork and local spices are some of the main ingredients in Goan cuisine. Use of kokum and vinegar is another distinct feature. Goan food is considered incomplete without fish.

Goan Catholic literature is diverse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lambert Mascarenhas</span> Indian journalist, activist, and writer (1914–2021)

Lambert Mascarenhas was an Indian journalist, independence activist, and writer from Goa. His family hailed from the Goan Catholic community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telo Mascarenhas</span>

Telo de Mascarenhas was a writer, a poet, a journalist and freedom-fighter from Goa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gauda and Kunbi</span>

Gaudas and Kunbis are aboriginal people residing in the coastal Indian state of Goa. They are believed to be the original inhabitants of Konkan. Most follow folk Hinduism, but many were converted to Catholicism by the Portuguese missionaries during the Christianisation of Goa while still keeping their folk tradition and culture alive.

Casimiro Emérito Rosa Teles Jordão Monteiro, also known as Agente Monteiro, was a Portuguese covert operations military intelligence officer and law enforcement officer during the Estado Novo regime. He carried out state-sanctioned bombings and assassinations in Portugal, Mozambique and Goa. His actions were mostly focused against members of independence movements that existed in the Portuguese colonial empire.

Dawson Fernandes is an Indian professional footballer who plays as a striker. He last played in India for Salgacar in the I-League, and currently plays for Goan United FC in the Middlesex County Football League.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goa</span> State in Western India

Goa is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the east and south, with the Arabian Sea in the west. It is India's smallest state by area and fourth-smallest by population. Goa has the highest GDP per capita among all Indian states, two and a half times as high as the GDP per capita of the country as a whole. The Eleventh Finance Commission of India named Goa the best-placed state because of its infrastructure, and India's National Commission on Population rated it as having the best quality of life in India. It is the third-highest ranking among Indian states in the human development index.

Goa is currently India's smallest state on the west coast, and its writers have written in many diverse languages. Poetry is a small and scattered field in the region, and this page makes an attempt to acknowledge those who have contributed to the field. It includes those listed below who have contributed to poetry in and from Goa, as well as those writing poetry in Goa. Poetry related to Goa is known to have been written in Konkani, in Portuguese, English and Marathi, apart from other regional, national and international languages to a lesser extent.

Joseph Furtado was an early South Asian poet and novelist who wrote in the English language. He has been praised as 'one of Goa’s best poets', albeit now 'in the shadows, pushed to the margins and somewhat forgotten'.

Epitácio Pais (1924–2009) was a Goan Indian short story writer and novelist who wrote in Portuguese.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandre Moniz Barbosa</span>

Alexandre Moniz Barbosa is a Goan journalist and writer, and winner of the 2013 biennial Goan Short Story competition.

António Mascarenhas was an Indian writer from the region of Goa. He is best remembered as the author of the book Goa from Prehistoric Times (1987). He wrote in the English language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Innocent Sousa</span>

Innocent Sousa (1879-1962) was a Bombay-based poet and writer of Goan origin, who wrote in the English language and got his work published in the early 20th century. He is mentioned in The Golden Treasury of Indo-Anglian Poetry: 1828-1965 and listed, early on among Indian writers in English, in the books-received section of the 1912-founded Poetry journal.

Paul Melo e Castro is a British scholar and academic, known for his work on editing and translating particularly Indo-Portuguese literature. His area of work is Lusophone literature, film and visual culture.

Violet Dias Lannoy (1925–1973) was a teacher and writer. Born in Mozambique to parents from Goa, India, she taught in schools and advised on educational policy all around the world. Lannoy, called "the lost Goan/Indian/African novelist" by critic and writer Peter Nazareth, wrote Pears from the Willow Tree, a posthumously published novel, besides short stories.

References

  1. ↑ Frederick Noronha. "Re: Dr. Leslie de Noronha". Goanet. Retrieved 28 Oct 2015.
  2. ↑ J. Clement Vaz (1997). Composers of music, singers and artistes (in Profiles of Eminent Goans, Past and Present). ISBN   9788170226192 . Retrieved 28 Oct 2015.{{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  3. ↑ Noronha, F.; D'Mello, P. "Goa in creative writing". GoaResearchNet. Retrieved 28 Oct 2015.
  4. ↑ Bakshi, Sandeep. "Past matters: Queer contestations of colonial masculinity in Leslie de Noronha’s The Dew Drop Inn and Shyam Selvadurai’s Cinnamon Gardens." Journal of Postcolonial Writing 51.5 (2015): 543-555, 545. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2015.1066411
  5. ↑ Agrawal, B. R., and M. P. Sinha. Major Trends in the Post-Independence Indian English Fiction. Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 2003.
  6. ↑ Vinayak Krishna Gokak, ed. (1970). The Golden Treasury of Indo-Anglian Poetry, 1828-1965. Sahitya Akademi. ISBN   9788126011964 . Retrieved 28 Oct 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.