Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

How long is the journey from the flash of insight
To the printed page?
Indu Mallah’s poems give the reader a glimpse of that journey which has to be made before one can pour out how one feels about the way things work.

Kalpana Mohan’s book explores the growing aspirations for learning and mastering a foreign language in contemporary India. She provides a rich sociological account of expectations, anxieties, and consequences of such aspirations on not just India’s youth.

Quichotte (pronounced key-shot), as the first page helpfully tells the reader, is a novel written by someone who very obviously watches a lot of TV, or so it seems. At its best the novel reflects an emergent way of thinking where there is very little differentiation.

‘I write to … express that part of women’s lives which is often buried and endured in silence.’ This line from Paramita Satpathy’s conversation with her translator says it all. Each of the fourteen stories in this collection showcases a different problem—each a common issue, rarely discussed.

This novel—and I’m using this classification as a temporary placeholder for an increasingly unstable yet resilient genre—is about a chanced upon manuscript dated 1724 which carries the confessions of Jack Sheppard, ‘an English folk hero and jail breaker.

When in doubt of your mettle, Rimli Gupta’s book, Karno’s Daughter makes for a good litmus test. If you feel exhausted on reading it, you are a wimp, but if the trials and tribulations of Buttermilk the protagonist buoy you, there is hope for you.

Have I died and gone to Heaven,’ I wondered. ‘I have been asked to review a detective novel my most favourite reading nowadays!’ And what a novel at that! The first book published by the author, it tells a gripping story in the manner of …no, no.

In 1958, a young boy from a small town in Madhya Pradesh failed in Hindi in the school final examination, because of which he had to enrol in an agricultural college where there was no Hindi. He completed the course and taught in an agricultural college for many years after.

Memento Mori is Latin for ‘remember you must die’. The recognition of mortality and the reiteration that life is lived in the midst of death is part of an old tradition iterated in cultures across the world through music, art, poetry, philosophy and writing.

Iqbal, aka Sufi and Aabid, the author, grew up in different households in Dongri, went to the same school and faced nearly similar circumstances at home. Their lives never intersected, and they did not witness each other’s trials and tribulations. Iqbal’s father.

There are not many fictional characters that acquire lives of their own. Sherlock Holmes comes to mind, as do Rumpole of the Old Bailey, Don Quixote, Cyrano de Bergerac and the inimitable Jeeves. The most recent entrant to this exalted and much-loved hall.

The title and subject of the book stirred up a deep sense of nostalgia in me. My siblings and I grew up in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra  in our formative years. The  names of dishes in  this book—Kaande pohe, thali peeth, varanbhath, etc.

The tenor of Amandeep Sandhu’s Panjab: Journeys Through Fault Lines is established in the very first chapter titled Satt–Wound. The author, born in Rourkela, admits to only a fragile link with Punjab (spelt Panjab)–his family once belonged to the State.

The work of historians is to deconstruct the past and re-present it, not necessarily as a coherent whole or one of consensus (Joan Scott, Gender and Politics of Representation) but rather, to explore the complexities in the past—including fissures and the conflicts that existed.

Premchand occupies an iconic status in the Hindi literary sphere as the foundational figure of modern Hindi fiction. He is seen as the exponent of realism, whose works have been considered not only to have democratized the literary domain by including those who.

Capitalized SAADAT HASAN MANTO, printed against strands of jet black hair that have escaped the floral edge of a burqa, which reveals more than it conceals; arched eyebrows, large and thickly kohl-lined eyes, the partial tantalizing glimpse of painted lips.

Urdu fiction is mostly known for its realist, humanist approach. Even in its most experimental incarnations, Urdu writers did not make any radical break from the modernist aesthetics. Mirza Athar Baig, a revolutionary in this sense, has been hailed as a pathbreaker who with each.

After Tagore and Premchand, if one can think of a literary figure who has had a national reach in India, it is UR Ananthamurthy (1932-2014).  URA was no doubt  the most influential Kannada writer of his times. But he was, equally, an inspiring teacher, creative administrator.

Pulayathara was published in the year 1962. It was the first novel in Malayalam to give a graphic description of the Dalit Christian condition. The novel was largely ignored by the reading public and critical establishments. However, the scorching issues of land, labour and faith that the book sought to project, continue to haunt millions.

The Solitary Sprout is a treat to read. This will come as no surprise to those familiar with Chudamani’s books. Like the others, this book contains no violence or sex, preaches no doctrine, upholds no morals……just twenty simple tales of the everyday life of mostly Tamilian families.