The Glass Palace is a 2000 historical novel by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh. The novel is set in Burma, Bengal, India, and Malaya, spans a century from the fall of the Konbaung Dynasty in Mandalay, through the Second World War to modern times. Focusing mainly on the early 20th Century, it explores a broad range of issues, ranging from the changing economic landscape of Burma and India, to pertinent questions about what constitutes a nation and how these change as society is swept along by the tide of modernity.
The name of the novel derives from the Glass Palace Chronicle, which is an old Burmese historical work commissioned by King Bagyidaw in 1829.
Read more about The Glass Palace: Awards and Translations
Famous quotes containing the words glass and/or palace:
“Vast chain of Being, which from God began,
Natures aethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing!—”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“It takes a heap o’ children to make a home that’s true,
And home can be a palace grand, or just a plain, old shoe;
But if it has a mother dear, and a good old dad or two,
Why, that’s the sort of good old home for good old me and you.”
—Louis Untermeyer (1885–1977)