Author Archives: Thebookreviewindia

Indira Parthasarathy, stalwart Tamil writer, is acknowledged as one of those who have revolutionized modern Tamil drama. Many of his plays have been translated into English and other Indian languages and staged in the Tamil original as well as in translations.  Besides nine full-length and seven one-act plays

Among the several hundred Pashtun tribes scattered along the borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Popalzai are possibly the most distinguished.

The nine-chaptered book by Joanna Bourke was first published in Britain in 2022. The South Asia edition has a dedicated preface for the Indian Edition. Joanna Bourke considers the year 2022 a pivotal year in the context of sexual violence in India as it marks the release of eleven prisoners convicted for life for the rape of Bilkis Bano. ‘In the 75th year of India’s Independence,

Though Indians have been travelling for the last few centuries, documentation of their travels have been scarce and far between. Pilgrimage, trade, and conquest drove the earliest subcontinental travels, but it was specifically a male domain.

The girl, Kalpana, spends three harrowing days and nights in a forest and is finally found lying near a road and brought back safe. But she has become silent and except for whispering a few words to her little sister much later in the story, she never utters a single sound.

For Indian readers, the contemporary ‘diaspora-novel’ (i.e., stories of individuals who migrate/move away from their homeland) has come a long way since 1991,

This novel was first published by Tranquebar in 2009 and has been republished in 2022 as a paperback by Speaking Tiger. Soumya Bhattacharya is an established journalist, and writer of well-regarded books on cricket

Hurda is a riveting read. Three young children—sisters, the eldest among them aged 14, are missing and subsequently found dead. They are survived by a poor family of three:

Wars are terrible tragedies. Especially like in Vietnam where it was pointless, just ‘a senseless blunder’. The dramatic flexing of the American muscles to prevent the ‘domino theory’, that if one nation turned Communist, it would likely influence other nations to the same end, is a misguided thought, although strongly backed by American presidents. It is a reflection of their exaggerated national fears and geopolitical strategies.

Arunava Sinha’s The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told is an ocean resounding narrative themes and linguistic expressions that spread across centuries.

Living in Air, a collection of seventeen stories by Ipshita Chanda, opens with the story ‘Wings’, an ode to the 18th century Urdu poet Mah Laqa Bai Chanda from Hyderabad

Word-induced silence makes witnessing both horrifying and lyrical, and it alters the understanding of the universe of emotions more profoundly, bringing in multi-layered, untold, exotic moments of epiphany.

Chakravarty’s Introduction comes with another poem in which she writes about angsanas that bloomed on trees and orioles ‘magicked out of the unseen leaves’. To her, they stand for the innocence of childhood.

The appeal of the novel lies in its conception as a microcosm where at the intrinsic level is a noticeable absence of an omnipotent author dictating mandates of life for his characters.

The plot revolves around Revathi’s marriage to Ravi, an auto driver living in a slum that houses erstwhile refugees from Burma who settled down in Tamil Nadu.

Bhishma is not perfect, is a flawed character himself. When Chitrangada, son of Shantanu by Satyavati died, his brother Vichitravirya ascends the throne.

he novel begins in media res with Maggie’s meditations on the recent separation from Jon, her partner who moved out of their shared one-bedroom apartment in the city along with their pet cat.

Author and journalist Swati Sengupta from Kolkata has breathed life into every line of her meticulous research (whose sources are duly mentioned). Illustrator Sridatri Tagore has livened it up by the intelligent spacing of her illustration,

Many in India and worldwide make the language itself an object of study. Linguists study its grammar and syntax within the context of historical linguistics. Indeed, linguistics as a discipline owes its origin to the European discovery of Sanskrit in the 18th century and its family relationship to most European languages. Some study it for its beauty, its aesthetic qualities. Sanskrit poetry and plays have been read and studied in the same way that we read the works of the English poet William Shakespeare, the French novelist Victor Hugo, or the German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Yet, for many of us who are primarily historians, Sanskrit opens the door to messages from the distant past in the form of texts and inscriptions

Ashoka has not been spared either of these, this intervention, at once scholarly and empathetic, is timely. Also, as the first volume in a series titled Indian Lives, it raises expectations, which are more than met.
Expectedly, there is much that the reader will find familiar.