Ulrich Beck in his much-acclaimed book Risk Society: Toward a New Modernity throws light on the consequences of a wide range of hazardous and deadly risks of a highly industrialized and urbanized society. He further elaborates that modern risks are not restricted to place or time.
Ship of Sorrows is the English translation of Qurratulain Hyder’s second novel, Safinae Ghame Dil (1952) written during the tumultuous years in Pakistan immediately following the Partition of the country. It is regarded as a sequel to her first novel, Mere Bhi Sanamkhane written.
Writers and poets have always taken note of history. Sometimes, when history is exceptionally brutal and bloody, the poet may fall silent but the prose writer is compelled to pick up his pen, and sometimes it is the reverse. Some events shake the conscience of thinking.
Mukundan’s latest offering in translation is a collection of three novellas—the eponymous long novella and two short ones. But these are not new stories; on the contrary they are pretty old ones written in the late 1960s and early 70s. They have been introduced to the English reading public some fifty years later in an interesting translation by Prema Jayakumar.