Nilla Cram Cook

Nilla Cram Cook (December 21, 1908 – October 11, 1982), also known as Nila Nagini Devi, was an American writer, linguist, translator, and arts patron.

Nilla Cram Cook
A white woman with dark hair parted center, wearing a bindi and beads, smiling.
Nilla Cram Cook while she was living in India, from a 1933 Australian newspaper.
BornDecember 21, 1908
Davenport, Iowa, US
DiedOctober 11, 1982
Neunkirchen, Austria
Other namesNila Nagini Devi (Hindu name)
Occupation(s)Writer, translator, linguist, arts patron
ParentGeorge Cram Cook

Early life

Nilla Cram Cook was born in Davenport, Iowa, the daughter of playwright George Cram Cook and his second wife, journalist Mollie Anastasia Price. Her father and stepmother Susan Glaspell brought her to Greece as a girl, to study languages and culture there.[1][2]

Career

In 1931, Cook left her husband in Greece and brought her young son to Kashmir,[2] where she became a follower of Gandhi,[3][4] converted to Hinduism,[5] and studied Sanskrit, Hindi, and Persian literatures. After she left Gandhi's ashram,[6] with a shaved head and barefoot,[7][8] she crashed a car,[9] and was detained as a vagrant and hospitalized for a month in 1934, in Calcutta,[10] [11] then deported with her son back to the United States.[12][13] On arrival at Ellis Island, she made odd pronouncements ("delusions of grandeur", according to her brother), and news stories remarked on the "dramatic" and "hectic" scene.[14][15] She wrote about this part of her life in a memoir, My Road to India (1939).[16][17] Mary Sully painted an abstract portrait titled "Nila Cram Cook" in the 1930s.[1]

In 1939, she became Europe correspondent for an American weekly, Liberty. She covered World War II from Greece, until she escaped Nazi detention in July 1941, and fled with her son to Tehran.[18] She worked as a cultural attaché at the American Embassy in Tehran from 1941 to 1947. During that time, Cook converted to Islam, and spent years on a personal project, editing and translating the Koran into English, with her own commentary.[19][20] She held a high position in Iran's Ministry of Education, oversaw film censorship,[21] and went on radio to read her translations of poetry. She helped build national theatre,[22] ballet,[23] and opera programs in Iran in the 1940s.[24] She worked with a fellow American expatriate, dancer Xenia Zarina, in Iran.[25]

Cook took a renewed interest in Kashmir in 1954,[26] and compiled a book of translated poems, titled The Way of the Swan: Poems of Kashmir (1958).[27][28]

Personal life

At age 18, in 1927, Nilla Cram Cook married Greek poet and government official Nikos Proestopoulos; they had a son, Serios Nicholas Proestopoulos (also known as Sirius Cook),[29] and divorced in 1932. She married again very briefly, to Albert Nathaniel Hutchins in 1934;[30] that marriage was annulled.[31][32]

Cook toured in Greece with her son and cousin and their wives in 1965.[33] She died in 1982, aged 74 years, in Neunkirchen, Austria.[19] Her gravesite is in Delphi, Greece, next to her father's grave there.[34]

References
  1. Deloria, Philip J. (2019-04-16). Becoming Mary Sully: Toward an American Indian Abstract. University of Washington Press. pp. 78–82. ISBN 978-0-295-74524-4.
  2. Barker, Ama (1933-12-03). "Too Much Cleopatra Turns U. S. Girl from Gandhi to Whoopee". Daily News. p. 257. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. "INDIA: INDIA Runaway Disciple". Time. 1933-12-11. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  4. Kapoor, Pramod (2017-10-24). Gandhi: An Illustrated Biography. Running Press. ISBN 978-0-316-55416-9.
  5. "American Girl Accepts Hinduism". The Bombay Chronicle. July 25, 1932. p. 6. Retrieved September 17, 2020 – via Internet Archive.
  6. "'Morbid Girls Not to Gandhiji's Taste'". The Bombay Chronicle. December 2, 1934. p. 12. Retrieved September 17, 2020 – via Internet Archive.
  7. "Nila Nagini Disappears". The Bombay Chronicle. October 17, 1933. p. 12. Retrieved September 17, 2020 – via Internet Archive.
  8. "Nila Nagini Staying at Muttra?". The Bombay Chronicle. October 20, 1933. p. 1. Retrieved September 17, 2020 – via Internet Archive.
  9. "NEUROTIC NILA". Truth (Brisbane, Qld. : 1900 - 1954). 1934-02-18. p. 11. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Trove.
  10. "Gandhi's Disciple Without a Home" (PDF). Manchester Evening Herald. January 11, 1934. p. 1. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
  11. "Nila Nagini Better". The Bombay Chronicle. January 10, 1934. p. 1. Retrieved September 17, 2020 – via Internet Archive.
  12. "Nila Cram Cook to Get Her Son". The New York Times. 1934-01-14. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  13. "BEAUTIfUL WOMAN". Daily Advertiser (Wagga Wagga, NSW : 1911 - 1954). 1934-02-14. p. 6. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. McCoy, Homer (1934-03-24). "Nila Cram Cook Returns to U. S. -- Dramatically". Globe-Gazette. p. 1. Retrieved 2020-09-17 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. "NILA GRAM COOK AND HER SON HERE; Former Disciple of Mahatma Gandhi Talks Volubly of 'Sunshine in Athens.' BOY SENT TO ELLIS ISLAND He Later Is Released in the Custody of Uncle -- Plans for Future Obscure". The New York Times. 1934-03-25. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  16. Cook, Nilla Cram (1939). My Road to India. L. Furman, Incorporated.
  17. "Books of this Week". The Boston Globe. 1939-09-22. p. 19. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. Weller, George (2009-04-28). Weller's War: A Legendary Foreign Correspondent's Saga of World War II on Five Continents. Crown. pp. 53–54. ISBN 978-0-307-45224-5.
  19. "Nilla Cram Cook, 74; A Writer and Linguist". The New York Times. 1982-10-13. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  20. "Nila Cram Cook Working On New Version of Koran". The Des Moines Register. 1945-03-18. p. 2. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. Denato, Pat (1982-01-31). "Notorious Ladies from Iowa's Past". The Des Moines Register. p. 33. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. "Davenport Girl, Nila Cook, Once Follower of Ghandhi". The Des Moines Register. 1948-01-31. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. Crystal, Charlotte (1996-01-18). "Dancing to Health". Daily Press. p. 32. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  24. Cook, Nilla Cram (1949). "The Theater and Ballet Arts of Iran". Middle East Journal. 3 (4): 406–420. ISSN 0026-3141. JSTOR 4322114.
  25. "UNESCO May Miss Its Dancing Girls". The Sydney Morning Herald. 1948-08-04. p. 3. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. Weller, George (1954-03-25). "Nila Cook Involved in India's Kashmir Issue". The Daily Times. p. 15. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  27. Pandita, S. N. (August 28, 2015). "Nilla Cram Cook : The Maverick Genius". Early Times Newspaper Jammu Kashmir. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  28. Cook, Nilla Cram (1958). The Way of the Swan: Poems of Kashmir. Asia Publishing House.
  29. Senate, United States Congress (May 10, 1950). Report on a Bill for the Relief of Sirius Proestopoulos. U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 1–2.
  30. "Nila Nagini Weds Chicago Writer". The Bombay Chronicle. March 28, 1934. p. 10. Retrieved September 17, 2020 – via Internet Archive.
  31. "Nila C. Cook's Romance Ends". Victoria Daily Times. p. 6. Retrieved September 17, 2020 – via Internet Archive.
  32. "'GODDESS' SUES". Mirror (Perth, WA : 1921 - 1956). 1934-09-22. p. 14. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Trove.
  33. Weise, Mabel (1965-10-28). "People You See and Hear About". The Dispatch. p. 23. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Newspapers.com.
  34. Longden, Tom (2006-05-21). "Wanderer Cook Loved Adventure". The Des Moines Register. p. 27. Retrieved 2020-09-18 – via Newspapers.com.
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