2013
Tagore and translation has had a tenacious relationship over the years. While an English translation of his own work won him the Nobel, some of Tagore’s English writer friends turned against him for trying too hard to cater to English tastes.
2013
The name of Sunil Gangopadhyay (1934-2012) has become iconic in contemporary Bengali literature, and his passing marks the end of an era. A prolific writer, he will be remembered for his poetry, novels, stories and essays, but most of all for his ability to bridge the gap between elite and popular culture.
Deliverance opens with a one-line letter written by two sisters, Mimi and Shami, to various people across the world—Ranju, Janaki, Toshi-Ojisan, Yoshiyo-Hisayo, and Dr. Abhi—about their parents’ death.
Ganesh Prabhakar Pradhan (1922-2010) wrote the first draft of the book under review during a term of imprisonment of eighteen months during the Emergency in 1975 (he completed it in 1979).
The book reviewed here has the sub-title ‘Contributions to the History of the Sanskrit Language’.
Gathering together fifteen papers presented at a two-day international conference at Miranda House (University of Delhi) in January 2010,
In relation to the Bhagavadgita, three extraordinary developments may be said to have occurred in British India.
‘She was there all along, contributing half the genes to each succeeding generation. Most of the books forget about her for most of the time. They drag her on stage rather suddenly for the obligatory chapter on Sex and Reproduction, and then say: ‘All right, love, you can go now,’ while they get on with the real meaty stuff about the Mighty Hunter…
1976
It is not often that we come across a noble theme explained by a worthy writer in a lucid manner. This book definitely belongs to this rare category. It is most appropriate that the National Book Trust should have asked Professor Swaminathan with his life-long devotion to the Maharshi to write this book on Ramana…
Many of us have on occasion been dubious about the obsession in some circles to explain Indian culture entirely in terms of mysticism. This analysis by Staal of how to approach the study of mysticism is most valuable in that it not only puts the matter into a new perspective…
Barring a few general works dealing with the under-developed countries, the economic surveys by the United Nations commissions and old administrative reports by the erstwhile colonial governments…
Wars generate a spate of books on tactical doctrine. Chaim Herzog’s book adds to the growing literature on the most important war in recent years, the Fourth Arab-Israeli war of 1973: the war which commenced on the day of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of mourning and atonement…
Whenever I think of Indian literature, a story retold by A.K.Ramanujan comes to mind: Hanuman reaches the nether-world in search of Rama’s ring that had disappeared through a hole.
2014
A heart-wrenching account of a child who gets trapped in a flesh trade circle and her relentless struggle to get out of it, Prem Nagar is much more than a work of fiction.
These lines from the opening poem, titled ‘Episcope’, instantly give the reader a sense of richness of words and images that the volume under review abounds in. Poem after poem, Ranjani Neriya weaves an intricate tapestry of myriad images, metaphors and vivid visual verse pictures in a tirelessly flowing stream of sonorous sounds and fecund expressions.
Shyam Selvadurai, who has edited Many Roads Through Paradise, an anthology of Sri Lankan writers is a writer of acclaim, and has published several books, many of which have won prestigious awards.
My narrative will not be your’s. I will live my life. You have to live with your demons.
Daughter by Court Order
In a country like India, it is still the norm in many parts of the country to cut women off from all aspects of family decision making processes, or even from decisions involving their own lives—marriage, family planning etc.
Bidyut Chakrabarty sees the mass uprisings of 2011 in West Asia as reconfirmation of the relevance of nonviolence. Barely three years after the exhilarating successes of the Arab Spring, however, nonviolence is far from the minds of the numerous factions engaged in seemingly interminable conflict for control of those troubled lands.
In that 1971 classic essay, ‘After the Revolution: The Fate of Nationalism in the New States’, Clifford Geertz alluded to the ‘darkened mood’ that had descended upon the new states. The great cultural anthropologist talked of a creeping ‘disenchantment with party politics, parliamen-tarianism, bureaucracy, and the new class of soldiers…
In 1963 Maulana Bhashani met Mao in Peking and Mao spoke to him about Pakistan, USA, USSR, and China. China’s relationship with Pakistan was extremely fragile at the time, Mao said to Bhashani…