Ruskin Bond's autobiography in Penguin's Independence list

Scenes from a Writer's Life, the autobiography of eminent English author Ruskin Bond, will be published in September this year as part of Penguin India's ''50 Years of Independence'' series.

Bond said that while his earlier autobiographical work, Rain in the Mountains, was about his long years spent in Mussoorie, Scenes from a Writer's Life described his first 21 years.

"Looking back, I find that those earlier years of my life have more incidents resulting from youthful enthusiasm," said the writer. "Two-thirds of the book talks about my life in Dehra Dun as a young boy," he added.

Scenes from a Writer's Life dwells on Bond's trip to England, his struggle to find a publisher for his first book The Room on the Roof and his yearning to come back to India, particularly to Doon. "It also tells a lot about my parents," said Bond.

"The book ends with the publication of my first novel and my decision to make writing my livelihood," Bond said, adding, "Basically it describes how I became a writer."

Speaking of his life in the mountains over the past four decades, Bond says, "Given the choice, I would not have done differently. When you have received love from people, and the freedom that only the mountains can give, then you have come very near the borders of heaven."

Other books to be published by Penguin India as part of this series include Satish Gujral's A Brush With Life (memoirs), R K Laxman's comic account of his life titled, The Tunnel of Time, B K Karanjia's Godrej: A Hundred Years, and R K Narayan's collection of essays titled How to be a Writer in India and Other Uncollected Essays.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Partition, Penguin India is publishing a selection of stories by Saadat Hasan Manto titled Mottled Dawn: Fifty Sketches and Stories of Partition. Urvashi Butalia's Partition Voices is a meticulous account of the traumatic event, recorded in the voice of survivors and others on whom Partition left its imprint.

Colours of Independence, a lavishly illustrated art book, is also being brought out on the occasion. In this book, 50 of India's finest painters and artists interpret, through original paintings and drawings, the 50 key events in the country's life since Independence.

UNI