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Volume 49 Number 4 April 2025
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Edited by Harish Trivedi Sahitya

In his substantial and in-depth Introduction, Professor Trivedi has explained with clarity and precision the overlap and differences between History and Literature, and has laid before us ‘the Mill-Macaulay-Macdonell Mockery’ that had such a debilitating effect on indigenous scholarship in this area. Almost all the essayists praise the grand achievement of Sisir Kumar Das, who created his own model for Indian Literary Historiography with the two volumes, A History of Indian Literature:
Volume VIII 1800-1910: Western Impact: Indian Response, New Delhi


Reviewed by: Smita Agarwal

By Meena T. Pillai

Meena Pillai’s book, Translating Kerala, attempts to trace the traditions of translation in Malayalam with reference to their role in shaping new social imageries and literary practices. Though translation has a long history in Malayalam dating back to the 14th century, her focus is on the trends from early twentieth century onwards.


Reviewed by: EV Ramakrishnan

By Sumanyu Satpathy

What gives the book its cutting edge, however, is the well-thought-out interpretative perspective that considers the subject of Odia literary modernity from multiple standpoints, thus providing a polyphonic picture of the phenomenon. The fact that the book is done in English redounds further to its credit, for this enables the local story to take its place under the sun and alongside other publicized stories of modernity in the Indian bhashas. Together these stories add up to a narrative totality of Indian literature in its diverse bhasha output.


Reviewed by: Himansu S. Mohapatra

Edited by Sudha Tripathi. Guest Editor: Brajratna Joshi

The most prominent identification of Gagan Gill’s writings by commentators has been her Buddhist belief system. Several essays have engaged with this aspect of her writing commenting on her spirituality, her philosophical bent of mind and her meditative approach to the world. Radhavallabh Tripathi identifies the foundations of Gill’s writings to be the Buddhist principles of acceptance of suffering, searching the reasons for suffering, tearing off the illusion of craving and the concept of impermanence of the world. He notes that she belongs to the long intellectual tradition in India that after Buddha centres on suffering.


Reviewed by: Kopal

Translated and introduced by Srinivas Reddy

It is definitely breathtaking to see the width of traditions he has managed to bring under the ambit of his compilation which he has translated himself. Translations are generally a source of joy as the translator is adding his or her enjoyment to the words of the writer and this one is no exception. In this compilation, there are translations from works in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Tamil.


Reviewed by: Sudhamahi Regunathan

Translated from the original Kannada by Krishna Murthy

Such luminous moments of insight, introspection and self-awareness make for a richly rewarding reading experience. They highlight the grey zones in the moral and sociopolitical terrain that the narrator and a whole host of his fellow-citizens from the twin villages of Uralli and Makkigadde must traverse daily as they struggle to keep their rather tenuous lives and livelihoods on an even keel.


Reviewed by: Cheriyan Alexander

By Ambai. Translated from the original Tamil by Gita Subramanian

Subverting reader-expectations of hard-core detective fiction, Sudha Gupta compromises on sheer objectivity to come across as a compassionate, socially responsible person. The titular story of the collection is framed by two schemes of domesticity—Sudha, Naren and their daughter Aruna, including their household helps share a relationship of camaraderie and stability, while Naren’s researcher friend Kishen, Madhavi and two school-going daughters inhabit a home inscribed by fear, trauma and suspicion. Though the story guides us through the unravelling of a heinous crime,


Editorial

It, therefore, gave me particular pleasure to be able to edit this volume of remarkable Indian short fiction for Aleph. We don’t make any claims to the book being a comprehensive representation of all the great short fiction published in this country. Rather, what I have tried to do is present a wide selection of stories I have read and admired. As with all anthologies, there are stories that we have been unable to include as we were unable to track down copyright holders.


Reviewed by: By AJ Thomas

By Uddipana Goswami

The cyclical and dehumanizing nature of violence is a central theme in the collection. Structural violence refers to the ways in which social structures harm or disadvantage individuals by preventing them from meeting basic needs. In ‘Sin and Retribution’, Goswami revisits the 1983 Nellie massacre from the perspective of a perpetrator, unravelling the layers of dehumanization that lead individuals to commit acts of extreme brutality. The story critiques the inherent futility and moral erosion of communal violence, emphasizing how both victims and perpetrators are trapped within the structures of hate and fear perpetuated by historical injustices and political opportunism.


Reviewed by: Parvin Sultana

By Sudeep Chakravarti

Chakravarti extends the narrative of Fallen City up to the tumultuous time of the 1980s—the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the victory of Indira Gandhi, the anarchic behaviour of Sanjay Gandhi, the ‘unquestioned heir apparent to India-is-Indira-Indira-is-India’, the death of Sanjay Gandhi, Operation Blue Star (entry of the army into the Golden Temple at the orders of Indira Gandhi) and the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Fallen City ends with the subsequent anti-Sikh riots of 1984.


Reviewed by: Payal Nagpal

By Margrit Pernau

When Jamia Millia Islamia, under its visionary Vice Chancellor Mushirul Hasan, decided to name its newly built daycare facility after Gerda Philipsborn, this German-Jewish woman was resurrected from anonymity for Jamia’s younger generations. Slowly, fragments of her life began to appear in articles and discussions and then, Margrit Pernau decided to do a full-fledged biography of this spectral figure. Considering a general apathy for institutional histories and even greater disregard for the role women played in them, this was a remarkable move.


Reviewed by: Nishat Zaidi

By Nandan Dasgupta

The core consists of the Introduction (pp. 1-47) and seven chapters with sub-sections and Notes (pp. 48-317). ‘My narrative explodes some myths and questions many perceptions, including an explanation of how he became a spendthrift. To understand Michael, there is a mass of misinformation to cut through…’, says Dasgupta (p. 40).


Reviewed by: Dipavali Sen

By Shania Sarup

The Holocaust has undoubtedly birthed the most harrowing stories but Silana’s journey across countries, fleeing an infernal homeland to reach a safe haven in India doesn’t leave an impact. The Maharaja frets over British disapproval of his mission of saving several Jewish children and the need to keep their work secretive, yet it’s unrealistic how several foreign children lodged in his summer palace escape the attention of the Britishers. For a novel largely set in India, the WWII years that mark a crucial phase in the struggle for Indian Independence make a measly appearance. Even though the story has its heart in the right place, the writing is too dandified.


Reviewed by: Divya Shankar

Edited by Sanjukta Sunderason & Lotte Hoek

The essay explores at length the close relations between the workings of the PWA and AAWA. Besides deliberating upon the evolution and checkered history of the PWA in India and Pakistan, Ramnath also makes an attempt at studying the socio-political and cultural scenario in which the journal Lotus emerged. AAWA provided a common platform for the reunion of Progressive Writers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. While the journal Lotus ceased soon after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, attempts at forging an alliance between Africa and South Asia have continued unhindered.


Reviewed by: Amol Saghar

Edited by Anshu Malhotra O

Purnima Dhavan’s ‘A Feast for the Heart and Mind: Print Culture, Polemics and Religious Debate in Punjab in the 1870s’ discusses the evolution of Islamic literature after the arrival of print in late-nineteenth century Punjab focusing on the Baran Anva, a lengthy seventeenth-century text, and Pakki Roti, a short booklet written in the nineteenth century. Focusing on Muslim Punjabis, Dhavan uses these texts to discuss printing enterprises, script, language and education in the 1870s. Going against the grain, she argues that Punjabi Muslims learnt about Islam not from Arabic or Persian, but through texts in Shahmukhi script that were in Punjabi and occasionally Urdu.


Reviewed by: Vikas Rathee

By Anna Sailer

They were also not fixed in time but products of historical circumstances. Thus, the author points out, during the 1870s this system was used by the employers to maintain a ‘reserve army of labour, in a context of recurring labour shortages’. But during the 1890s, the multiple-shift system represented ‘a qualitatively new development’ in which the managers tried to control deployment of labour in certain crucial departments of jute industry in the name of standardization and rationalization. The process of control intensified in the early decades of the twentieth century and finally the multiple-shift system and work gangs were abolished by the early 1930s. Single-shift system was now imposed in many mills with increasing managerial control over the work process.


Reviewed by: Shashi Bhushan Upadhyay

By Pratap Padode

The urban disposition they have conceived is a triad, a three-legged stool, which must ‘articulate normatively where it begins and what motivates it, be able to think analytically about how cities actually work as well as about the nature of complex urban problems and move operationally to point to how one could get to different desired ends’. It is not a new urban theory or paradigm, but a process to engage with the problems of cities in order to produce new knowledge towards change that one desires, but crucially, it is never fully predetermined or a priori.


Reviewed by: AG Krishna Menon

By Amrita Saikia

The section on research methodology and methods is particularly engaging and insightful. Saikia has elaborately articulated how she accessed the field, which is far removed from her world. To inform herself about the Tibetans in exile before conducting her research, she referred to books, research articles, documentaries, and newspaper articles. She also identified and joined a week-long programme in Dharamshala (her field) to gain access to the community. This programme was run by a Tibetan NGO called Students for a Free Tibet (SFT).


Reviewed by: Juanita Kakoty

Edited by Meenakshi Malhotra, Krishna Menon, Rachana Johri Routledge

The themes the authors address represent different ways in which we seek to embody ourselves in the world, whether through negotiation, submission, dissent, protest or critique. We make the world what it is. The world no doubt exists out there with its structures and fixed meanings, through which we are viewed as embodied humans, but we too have the wherewithal to modify that fixity, and transform it to make our lives meaningful in the ways in which we seek to live. This brings agency to the foreground and emphasizes the role of the human subject in not merely living out a human life but in transforming that process in whatever way possible. Embodiment is therefore not fixed or unchangeable.


Reviewed by: Meenakshi Thapan

Edited by Ranu Uniyal and Fatima Rizvi

Gaele Sobott’s essay titled ‘I Can Hear Her Breathing: Disabled Writers Writing Disability’ explores possibilities for widening intellectual and aesthetic horizons through the disruption of dominant disablist narratives by writers with disabilities writing for themselves and telling their own authentic stories. Sobott herself is admittedly more interested in writing that supports a world with diversity, like works by disabled writers of colour and works translated into English rather than writing that strives to make the experience of disability more palatable to a non-disabled audience.


Reviewed by: Vedamini Vikram

By Jennifer Nandi

Specializing in customized tours to help the knowledgeable and discerning traveller ‘make connections with the soul of India’, Nandi says: ‘I use Nature, a central principle of human lives, which is not only beautiful but also good for us, that helps us regain our equanimity, that tunes our brain’s attention network, that keeps us so very happy; for this has made me who I am.’
No Half Measures describes a rambunctious excursion of several weeks in 2010 to the wildest reaches of the North East: parts of the country known for insurgency and instability, but which appealed to Nandi’s non-conformism and derring-do as much as that of her client’s.


Reviewed by: Govindan Nair