The Seduction of Silence
From a stuffy room in the Spiritualist Church of Great Britain to the breathtaking beauty of the Himalayas, The Seduction of Silence takes us on the spiritual and emotional journeys of a remarkable Indian family. In a fascinating tale, at once both ethereal and earthy, Bem Le Hunte interweaves the sagas of family life with the richness of Hindu spiritual beliefs. The story-telling itself is compelling and with the addition of the magical element inherent in Indian everyday life, The Seduction of Silence becomes a vibrant and passionate epic.
Aakash is a venerated sage in the Himalayas; in death, he continues to hold a place in the living world, offering his teachings through Dora Hindes, a middle-aged, English medium. Tulsi Devi, his daughter, takes her own path, escaping the restrictions of her convent education and entering the dangerous world outside its gates. Rohini, Aakash's granddaughter, marries an Englishman and immerses herself in the London of the 1960s. With Rohini's daughter, Saakshi, the search for enlightenment comes full circle, and the great-granddaugher returns to her spiritual home – the magical Himalayas, where the story first began.
Encountering aghoris who smear themselves with the ashes of the dead and eat food out of human skulls; eunuchs who dance, tease and lure; and a midwife as radical as any witch burnt at the stake in years gone by, The Seduction of Silence is an important debut of immense power and magic.
The Seduction of Silence was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2001.
I wrote The Final Christmas as a literary accompaniment to The Seduction of Silence, a story of five generations of an Indian family, read The Final Christmas here now.
Praise for The Seduction of Silence
“The Seduction of Silence is a work of persuasive imagination, of such scope, power and narrative charm that it does make you wonder, as with Salman Rushie and Rohinton Mistry and others, whether all good modern writing has an essential connection with the Indian sub-continent.”
“A splendidly conceived saga weaving the history of an entire culture into the
portrait of one family: vivid, compelling, utterly fascinating.”
“Passion, grief and glory infuse this novel, which is at once wholly original and yet squarely in the tradition of the great family sagas. In prose as vivid and arresting as a marigold, Le Hunte gives us five generations of seekers. Her account of what they find and what they lose is irresistible. I couldn’t put it down.”
“This intricate tale moves across continents and time as it maps the reaches of the soul. Is Le Hunte an Anglo-Indian Allende? Or even a female Rushdie? You decide in a very worthwhile read.”