The back cover often plays an important role in the reader’s journey from picking up the book from a stack to making it to its last page. It’s so important that many a book and blog have been written for helping writers and publishers write the perfect back page, or ‘creating a killer back cover.’
Niraja Gopal Jayal’s Citizenship and Its Discontents: An Indian History presents what she variously calls a history of ideas, a genealogy, or a biography of citizenship in India. Standing as the proxy for ‘the Indian people’, citizenship is the tragic protagonist of her story. Every story of citizenship is, necessarily, also a story of the state.
There already exist two full-length studies on Satyajit Ray: a biographical study by Marie Seton and Robin Wood’s Apu Trilogy. But Orient Longman’s expensively brought out Our Films, Their Films is a rare book-a noted film-maker’s musings about himself, his craft and about other film makers….
The book under review is part of the ‘India Library’ series not ‘learned treatises on Indology, nor meant to be reference works … ‘ but’ … to give encyclopaedic, compressed information on each subject’. As such, this book is a simple plebian attempt to undergo a journey into Raga—the sound of Indian music…
National Centre for the Performing Arts, Bombay deserves all praise for devoting the September 1975 issue of their quarterly journal to Muttuswami Dikshitar, whose 200th birth anniversary was observed with eclat all over the country last year. As rightly pointed out in the Foreword, Dr. Raghavan is eminently suited to be the author of this venture…
This is Raghuvir Sahai’s third volume of poems. His two previous ones: Seedhiyon Par Dhoop Mein (1960) and Atmahatya Ke Viruddha (1967) have already established him as a major Hindi poet of the post-sixties.
Anglo-Indian fiction has generally interested non-Indians more than Indians, hence it is appropriate that Bhupal Singh’s pioneering work should achieve a new impression under the joint imprint of Curzon Press (London) and Rowman & Littlefield (Totowa N.J.)…
It has long been acknowledged that Browning is one of the poets best served by severe selection. The task of the editor who wishes to present the best of Browning is made easier by the fact that Browning’s work falls naturally into three periods, of which the middle one might be said to contain almost all his best work…
Monsieur fascinates, is full of many interesting possibilities, yet does not quite succeed. Durrell, sadly, does not develop more fully the many curious, inter-linked themes that he interjects along the tortuous way of this novel within a novel. In fact, one often gets the feeling that Durrell himself—like most of his characters…
1976
In India one does not choose and adopt a philosophical system; one is born into it and grows up in it. This may sometimes prove a disadvantage, for it is not easy for the leopard to change its spots. If Dr. Ramachandran’s earlier work on The Concept of Vyavaharika in Advaita Vedanta was a model of lucidity and precision…
One of the chief manifestations of the Hindu preoccupation with purity and pollution is in rela- tion to food and its preparation. This is particularly the case with the orthodox among the higher castes. R.S. Khare in his detailed study of the eating habits of nine selected caste groups in the Lucknow-Baiswara…
I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.Then follows an account of the early phase of the evolution of Muslim politics in Bengal between 1905-1935…
1976
Sub-titled Decline and Fall of the British Empire, this book, by an ex-officer of the Royal Air Force who was an equerry of King George VI, is by any standards a remarkable book—full of information, political insights, and written in a most readable style. The author who from the vantage point of Buckingham…
Have postcolonial theory and subaltern studies in their attempt to point towards difference, consciously or unconsciously, reproduced colonial ideology and an Orientalist description of the subaltern and her politics in India?
Dag Hammarskjold and the Congo Crisis are both fascinating subjects, joined together by the United Nations connection. Either would merit a book in itself by Rajeshwar Dayal who had an intimate knowledge of both. But in choosing to write on his ‘mission for Hammarskjold’, Dayal hardly…
The authors of this book, Wilfred Burchett, an Australian, and Rewi Alley, a New Zealander, are no strangers to China. Burchett spent 19 years in S.E. Asia and China, and Rewi Alley first went to China in 1927. He stayed to witness, and to participate in the momentous events that encompassed…
This volume is a collection of fifteen essays on a bewildering array of themes, which range from a gossipy piece on factional feuds at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library to a profound reflection on the state of universities in India.
Why My Third Husband Will Be A Dog is an extremely witty, humorous and enjoyable book. It makes for very good reading and is the perfect companion during a flight—will bring smiles and laughter to an otherwise boring flight or enjoy its cheerful funny snippets while lapping up the waves on a waterfront by the beach.
Vinod Joseph writes well, with a crisp, clear, no nonsense style. He writes with a bravado, typical of the new generation of young writers, who don’t need publicity to feel that they can succeed.
After reading a few young home-grown Indian English authors, switching to Joginder Paul’s short fictions in their English translation by Usha Nagpal and Kirti Ramchandran was like a breath of fresh air.