Better To Have Gone: Love, Death And The Quest For Utopia In Auroville
Author: Akash Kapur
ISBN: 978-1398513198
Price: Rs. 599.00 • ✓ 100% Genuine Publisher Edition
Book Overview
'Beautifully written and structured, deeply moving, and realised in wise, thoughtful, chiselled prose... it is that rarity: a genuine non-fiction classic' William Dalrymple A spellbinding story about love, faith, the search for utopia - and the often devastating cost of idealism. Its the late 1960s, and two lovers converge on an arid patch of earth in South India. John Walker is the handsome scion of a powerful East Coast American family. Diane Maes is a beautiful hippie from Belgium. They have come to build a new world - Auroville, an international utopian community for thousands of people. Their faith is strong, the future bright. So how do John and Diane end up dying two decades later, on the same day, on a cracked concrete floor in a thatch hut by a remote canyon? This is the mystery Akash Kapur sets out to solve in Better to Have Gone, and it carries deep personal resonance: Diane and John were the parents of Akashs wife, Auralice. Akash and Auralice grew up in Auroville; like the rest of their community, they never really understood those deaths. In 2004, Akash and Auralice return to Auroville from New York, where they have been living with Johns family. As they re-establish themselves, along with their two sons, in the community, they must confront the ghosts of those distant deaths. Slowly, they come to understand how the tragic individual fates of John and Diane intersected with the collective history of their town. Better to Have Gone is a book about the human cost of our age-old quest for a more perfect world. It probes the under-explored yet universal idea of utopia, and it portrays in vivid detail the daily life of one utopian community. Richly atmospheric and filled with remarkable characters, spread across time and continents, this is narrative writing of the highest order - a heartbreaking, unforgettable story.
Browse this title within our Autobiography collection. Edition details: Hardcover, English, 368 pages. Reference ISBN: 978-1398513198.
About the Author
Akash Kapur is the author of India Becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern India and the editor of an anthology, Auroville: Dream and Reality. He is the former Letter from India columnist for the New York Times, the recipient of a Whiting Grant, and has written for various leading publications in the UK, USA and India. He grew up in Auroville and returned there to live with his family after being educated in the USA and UK, where he received a doctorate from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
Book Specifications & Quick Facts
- Reading Level
- Students & Academic Researchers
- Language & Format
- English • Hardcover
- ISBN Reference
- 978-1398513198
- Publisher
- Simon & Schuster
- Pan-India Delivery
- Dispatches in 24–48 Hours across India
What is this book about?
'Beautifully written and structured, deeply moving, and realised in wise, thoughtful, chiselled prose... it is that rarity: a genuine non-fiction classic' William Dalrymple A spellbinding story about love, faith, the search for utopia - and the often devastating cost of idealism. Its the late...
Who should read this book?
Valuable for university students, educators, and scholars seeking authoritative reference material and structured subject mastery.
Why Readers Pick This Edition
- You’ll be drawn in by a true story that reads with the power of a novel. This book takes you deep into the dream of Auroville, exploring love, belief, and the price people pay for idealism. With elegant, compassionate prose, it blends personal history with sharp social insight, leaving you moved, reflective, and questioning what it really means to search for a perfect world.
- Published by Simon & Schuster.
- Language: English.
- Page count: 368.
Catalog Description
'Beautifully written and structured, deeply moving, and realised in wise, thoughtful, chiselled prose... it is that rarity: a genuine non-fiction classic' William Dalrymple A spellbinding story about love, faith, the search for utopia - and the often devastating cost of idealism. Its the late 1960s, and two lovers converge on an arid patch of earth in South India. John Walker is the handsome scion of a powerful East Coast American family. Diane Maes is a beautiful hippie from Belgium. They have come to build a new world - Auroville, an international utopian community for thousands of people. Their faith is strong, the future bright. So how do John and Diane end up dying two decades later,...
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