- David Charles Manners
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David Charles Manners
David Charles Manners (born 1965) is a British writer and co-founder of Sarvashubhamkara, a charity that provides medical care, education and human contact for socially excluded individuals and communities on the Indian subcontinent. [1]
With his mother raised in Sussex, his father on India's North-West Frontier and in the East Punjab, David enjoyed an eclectic European education in Epsom, Lichfield, Bath, Paris, Frankfurt, London and Stockholm.
Having worked in public relations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, David settled in London where he worked as a theatre designer, primarily with Adventures in Motion Pictures, one of Britain’s foremost dance companies, for which he was also commissioned to compose original instrumental work. His designs included Matthew Bourne's Infernal Galop, Deadly Serious, The Percys of Fitzrovia and Drip (BBC's Dance for the Camera).
"David influenced a lot of AMP work throughout those years, because he had so many interests," says Matthew Bourne. "He was someone that I could definitely develop ideas with, that I could talk to about what I should do next ... Certainly David was an important influence throughout those years." [2]
David also designed the first Italian translation of Bernstein's Candide for Graham Vick at Batignano, Tuscany.[3]
He appears in the 1972 film Meet the Mormons and the 1994 hit British comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral.
A translator for the Parisian Professor Alfred A. Tomatis and the National Research Group, David was awarded a 'Sound and Image' music degree from Newton College, Bath, then went on to train in Physical Medicine. He subsequently worked for thirteen years as Physical Therapist with musicians, conductors and singers at Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
He is an initiate of a little-known Eastern Himalayan tantric tradition, in which he has led introductory courses at Glyndebourne, English National Opera, for the Jerwood Young Artists’ Programme, and in various regions of India.
A contributor to various journals, his first book, In the Shadow of Crows, was published in 2009 by Reportage Press, with a percentage of the publisher's profits from its sale dedicated to the work of Sarvashubhamkara amongst the ostracised in India. Having received international acclaim, a second edition, published by Signal Books, was released in August 2011 for distribution in Britain, North America and India. His literary agent is Sheila Ableman.[4]
David is collaborating with choreographer Ben Wright, composer Alan Stones and projection artist Dick Straker on a new theatre production with the contemporary dance company Bgroup, to be toured in the winter of 2011.[5]
Since 1993, David has spent his life between the Sussex Downs and the Bengal Himalaya.
Contents
In the Shadow of Crows: Synopsis
In the Shadow of Crows recounts the passage of two journeys through India driven by loss, and an unlikely, remarkable friendship.
Bindra, widowed granddaughter of a mountain bojudeuta shaman and mother of four children, contracts leprosy. She is violently driven from her mountain home and is forced to travel across the Plains in search of a place of safety, where she might one day reunite her family.
David is raised in Surrey speaking ‘kitchen Urdu’ and with a childhood imagination entirely consumed by a fantasy life in India, a country in which he has never once stepped. Not until he finds himself lost and isolated as a result of calamitous events is he driven to uncover the true history of his non-British roots in the foothills of the Himalaya.
And when he eventually walks into a cruelly mistreated leprosy colony and meets an elderly woman called Bindra, both their lives are transformed.
In the Shadow of Crows: Reception
Radio journalists initially took up In the Shadow of Crows, with Nikki Bedi on the BBC Asian Network broadcasting, "I learnt so much from this book … it shows a great depth of understanding"; Rhod Sharp on BBC Five Live calling it "wonderful philosophy"; and Wojtek Gwiazda, on Radio Canada International's ‘Masala Canada’, considering it an account of "two fascinating stories."
Line Boily reviewed the book on the French language Radio-Canada as "Une histoire ... écrit avec une candeur et honnêteté rare ... une histoire très touchante ... un livre que j'ai lu avec beaucoup, beaucoup d'intêret."
Montreal's Westmount Examiner and The Monitor newspapers published the following review by Bureau Chief Toula Fosclos: "'In the Shadows of the Crows' teaches us that there’s hope in the horror of daily life. There’s affirmation of good in the ghastly. Life is both better and worse than we ever imagined it to be and Manners is an inspirational, thoughtful, and compassionate writer, softly reminding us all of our common humanity and whispering to us that our life’s purpose should be to take care of one another. No matter our circumstances, we all live our lives in the shadow of death, but it’s the leaning into the light that makes the brief time we spend on earth hold any meaning at all ..." [6]
Bill Richardson, author and broadcaster on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, has written, "David Charles Manners is an inspiring writer and speaker ... Intelligent and generous, cosmopolitan and compassionate, and an unrepentant polyglot and xenophile, Mr. Manners has led and is leading a big life. Disinclined to squander opportunity, his appetite for experience, as well as his humour and big-heartedness, are palpable on every page of In the Shadow of Crows. Having spent the better part of a quarter century interviewing people, mostly for CBC Radio, I have been on the fortunate receiving end of many, many personal and remarkable stories, and his is one I will always remember. Read him. Meet him. It will be time well spent."
Gilda O’Neill, novelist and author of the Sunday Times Best Seller My East End, described In the Shadow of Crows as "A journey into another world that tells a story which is at once accomplished, intriguing and moving." Award-winning Canadian author Brian Doyle deemed it "Very moving and well written ... In the Shadow of Crows was a book that I found hard to put down. I learned."
Professor Dhirendra Sharma, Editor of Philosophy & Social Action and Convener of Concerned Scientists & Philosophers, India, reviewed it as "A volume to provoke true soul-searching … a must read," whilst Indian writer Chandralekha Mehta, niece of Jawaharlal Nehru and author of Freedom’s Child, wrote that In the Shadow of Crows "highlights with compassion an Indo-British connection that has always been swept out of sight."
References
- ^ http://www.sarva.org.uk
- ^ Macaulay, Alastair (ed.) (1999). Matthew Bourne and His Adventures in Motion Pictures: In Conversation with Alastair Macaulay. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 057119706X.
- ^ http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rauN4H3VWf4C&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=batignano+candide+manners&source=bl&ots=kEwmq3IyHh&sig=oznERTaJFPC9m10QOtdS1Cok0ec&hl=en&ei=hVGkSfX-JuCGjAe7jojCBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result
- ^ http://www.sheilaableman.com/
- ^ http://bgroup.org.uk/
- ^ http://www.westmountexaminer.com/Opinion/Columns/2010-07-28/article-1628598/In-the-Shadow-of-Crows%3A-a-remarkable-account-of-love%2C-leprosy-and-loss/1
Bibliography
- David Charles Manners, In the Shadow of Crows: Reportage Press, 2009. ISBN 1906702063; ISBN 978-1906702069.
- David Charles Manners, In the Shadow of Crows: Signal Books, 2011. ISBN 1904955924
External links
Categories:- 1965 births
- Living people
- Yogis
- People from Epsom
- People from Lichfield
- British writers
- Gay writers
- LGBT writers from the United Kingdom
- LGBT people from England
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