The Professor of Light por Marina Tamar Budhos - March 1999

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, March 1999. Hardcover. First Edition / full number line. Near Fine book in a Near Fine jacket. Interior pristine. Spine straight and very tight, ends bumped. Black remainder mark to top edge. Light foxing to edges. Jacket clean and bright with slight edgewear. Not from a library. Not clipped. 254 pages.

This is the journey of Meggie Singh and her father, a charming, befuddled professor of philosophy from Guyana. Every summer Meggie and her parents pack up their luggage, leave New York City, and move to the home of Aunt Inez and Uncle Tom in England. There, Professor Singh struggles to write a book that takes on one of the greatest paradoxes to confound thinkers of the twentieth century: the dual nature of light as both particle and wave. Each chapter in The Professor of Light is a summer spent in England as Meggie moves from childhood to the brink of adulthood and Professor Singh grooms his daughter in a rich mix of philosophy and Indian-Caribbean storytelling. But Professor Singh is haunted by the past: a promise to his family in Guyana; tales of "the jumbee curse." As he pushes further into his philosophical search, Meggie must choose how far her devotion will take her. Light, both particle and wave, comes to resonate with bigger questions of East and West, identity and immigration, being of a place and moving on. The Professor of Light is a gripping depiction of the intense bond between a father and a daughter — a father who is driven mad in his quest to understand light, and a devoted daughter who risks falling off the edge with him.