Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

Kalpana Sahni’s selection of reminis­cences on Tolstoy translated for the first time into English, brings to life the 19th century literary scene in Russia. This book is an attempt to show the many­-sided personality of Tolstoy through the memoirs of his relatives, friends, acquain­tances and contemporaries. Tolstoy’s 150th birth anniversary coincided with the pub­lication of hitherto unpublished material on him, in the USSR.

Muktibodh Rachanvali is a six volume compilation of the total literary output of one of the most remarkable writ­ers of our time. Born in 1917 at Sheopur, Gwalior, in a middle-class family, Muktibodh died in New Delhi in 1964 after a prolonged illness, leaving behind a size­able body of work most of it unpublished.

This unexpected and delightful autobio­graphy would have been extra-ordinary enough for its lively, concrete and witty prose (all qualities rarely found in English written by Indian authors) but becomes even more so when one discovers it is the work of a Bengali Muslim who left school.

Anthologies of the writings of a single individual of this type are rare; either they are collections of admonitory sayings with a political purpose on a much briefer compass like Mao Tse-tung’s Red Book or varied selections of the utterances of the great man concerned on a particular topic spread over the years.

‘SARVODAYA’ movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi and pursued by others like Vinoba Bhave and Jayaprakash Narayan in India, and A.T. Aryartne in Sri Lanka, has attracted the attention of scholars an over the world.