The Stolen Light (Continents of Exile) (Hardcover)

by Ved Mehta (Author)
Key Phrases: facial vision, sighted girl, Los Angeles, International House, Miss Rietveld (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This sixth volume of Mehta's lively, affecting autobiography covers his experiences at Pomona College, Calif., in the 1950s, when, despite his blindness, he tried to carry on the normal life of an undergraduate: joining a fraternity, bicycling, owning and driving a car and dating some of the most attractive girls on campus. Containing extensive selections from the Indian writer's journal, this lyrical narrative describes the student's problems in finding people to read to him and sponsors to pay his expenses, the suicide of his closest friend and his father's puzzling relationship with a wealthy woman to whom he was "court physician." Toward the end, at Harvard, he completes his first book, Face to Face , and starts his literary career.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Mehta, a New Yorker writer, presents the sixth volume in an autobiographical series, "Continents of Exile." It describes Mehta's undergraduate years at Pomona College in California and gives a unique perspective on America in the 1950s. This is a lyric narrative of an unusual, talented blind youth from India. He attempted to untangle contrary cultural forces, trying to be accepted without special considerations. As a student, he encountered not only the expected problems--cultural and ethnic--but also financial ones, when he set out to live the life of an ordinary American college student. He succeeded in experiencing fraternity life and dating in the sighted world. His vivid account of his college life makes for a delightful book that will appeal to a variety of readers.
- Samuel T. Huang, Northern Illinois Univ. Libs., DeKalb
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 462 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc; 1st edition (February 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393026329
• ISBN-13: 978-0393026320
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,587,575 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the most astonishing autobiography I ever read, July 13, 2001

By	holly moors (haren gn, gn Netherlands) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is one volume in a series of books that form the autobiography of Ved Mehta. Mehta started with two biographies of his mother and father (Mamaji and Daddyji) and then started to write about his own life. It's an astonishing, deeply moving story of a boy gone blind at a very early age, who goes to America to study, and later to England (Oxford) and Harvard, to become a staff writer for The New Yorker. It's a shame and a disgrace that most of these books are out of print, because I consider them as Great Literature. He not only tells his own life, he also gives you insight into different cultures (starting with the lives of his mother and father, who had a totally different background, then the separation of India and Pakistan, then the difference between East and West, and finally between America and Europe). Warning: If you read one part of his autobiography, you'll want to read them all!