FOREIGN SOIL

This is a collection of short stories and sketches, written over several years. Some are quite fictional in character, but with so strong an aura of truth in characterization and emotional quality that they seem to bear the stamp of personal experience and knowledge. All of them are backgrounded in South India, the region Robin White knows best, and where there are whites, they are linked in one way or another with the mission field. Understanding, compassion, originality in choice of material- these are factors stronger than the often alight story thread. But a few have a basic plot element- some humorous (as in The Faise Teeth), some satiric (The Pavadam) some tragic (Foreign Soil). The quality of his singing prose, the color in his settings, the graphic characterization- a few vivid lines, give the reader a rewarding sense of participation, remote though the subject matter may be. This shows other facets of a gifted writer, first known through his autobiographical novel, House of Many Rooms Elephant Hill won the Harper prize.