Book Description

In 1947, Santha Rama Rau went to Japan with her father, India’s ambassador to Tokyo. A year later, she went to China with friends, hitchhiked to remote provinces of the northwest, and traveled through Indo-China and Siam to Indonesia to live for several months in a Balinese village. East of Home is the report of a fascinating trip, full of information about the people of Asia, their customs, theater and dance. It also shows how a young Indian woman, educated in the West, encounters Asia for the first time and discovers herself as an Asian. “A first-rate and deceptively informal account of a recent journey through Asia.” —The New Yorker “An informal and pleasantly engaging book about [Santha Rama Rau’s] travels in the Far East... personal, colored by her acute consciousness of being an Asian among Asians.” — Orville Prescott, The New York Times “A travel book with timely, disturbing moral under-currents, both social and political... so enthralling, so utterly convincing and absorbing that one rebels at turning the last page.” — Boston Herald “Delightful reading... a fascinating adventure story. It also enables one to see Asia as a whole... But its main value lies in the fact that an Asian writes about Asia... an Asian who since she has lived and been educated in the West has the advantages of both points of view. In this age of an Asian renascence Miss Rama Rau’s account is both interesting and vital.” — Saturday Review