Written in 1790, Hasan Shah's autobiographical romance, The Dancing Girl , is remarkable for both its lyrical prose and its fine recreation of a time, a place, and a culture--India in the 1780s, a tolerant, affable era before the full establishment of British colonial rule. The Dancing Girl tells of the doomed love of Hasan Shah (aide-de-camp to a British officer) and Khanum Jan (a courageous and gifted dancer of the courtesan caste) whose secret...