"Brought to Life by the Voice provides a detailed and highly convincing historical and ethnographic exploration of the varying links between the singing voice and the body in the Tamil film industry since the mid-twentieth century. Amanda Weidman demonstrates how the affordances of playback technology were deployed in different ways that often run counter to the assumption of body-voice unity that is widespread in North Atlantic contexts, highlighting the fragmentation of body and voice instead. The historical and ethnographic analysis the book presents is meticulous and excellent."--Patrick Eisenlohr, author of Sounding Islam: Voice, Media, and Sonic Atmospheres in an Indian Ocean World