Donna J Young

From the desert state of Arizona in the U.S., a researcher was drawn to the printed word emerging from this small region called Goa. Donna J. Young tells Frederick Noronha what made her look at the literature of this distant land, and why she found Goan writing (primarily in English, which she studied) to be interesting…


Reviewed by: Frederick Noronha
Mahmud Rahman

Zadie Smith in her collection, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays has a piece where she talks of the craft of writing.In ‘The Crafty Feeling’, Smith says that it is when the writer reaches a point called the ‘middle’ that the novel and the experience of writing it begin to totally consume her. She has to finish writing it…


Reviewed by: Anuradha Kumar
Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi

Siddharth Dhanavant Shanghvi’s novel has all the ingredients of a classic potboiler: love, lust, power, violence, murder, suspense, scandals and courtroom drama.Yet it does not quite succeed, either as a gripping narrative or as an intense scrutiny of modern social trends.Inspired by the Jessica Lall murder case and liberally strewn with episodes that recall recent sensational news stories, the book nevertheless affirms its status as fiction…


Reviewed by: Radha Chakravarty
E.V. Ramakrishnan

Anthologies serve as signposts in the general trajectories of literary discourse, assimilating changing aesthetic tastes and exerting a vital influence on the future course of literary genres. This anthology of Indian woman poets commissioned as part of the Sahitya Akademi’s effort to showcase Indian English women writers…


Reviewed by: Amrita Mehta
K. Natwar Singh

We have here a bunch of old letters (with apologies to Jawaharlal Nehru, who gave this title to his collection) that reveal the author’s select correspondence with the famous, like Governor-Generals Mountbatten and Rajagopalachari; Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai and Rajiv Gandhi; savants E.M. and Morgan Forster, M.F. Husain, R.K. Narayan, Nadine Gordimer, Han Suyin, K.K…


Reviewed by: P.R. Chari
R.V. Vaidyanatha Ayyar

Vaidyanatha Ayyar has written a text book on the mechanics of policymaking in the country obviously for the graduate students of management in the institution where he teaches. He has adopted the format and style of the text-books commonly used in the American universities.


Reviewed by: Sanjoy Bagchi
Deepak K. Singh

India has been the home for a large number and different types of refugees throughout the past.1 India has dealt with the issues of refugees on a bilateral basis. India’s refugee problem management generally conforms to the international instruments on the subject without, however, giving a formal shape to all practices adopted…


Reviewed by: Chunnu Prasad
Zimako O. Zimako

This book attempts an investigation into a major issue confronting contemporary Nigeria, namely, the question of managing its image at both domestic and international levRe-Orderels. In trying to unravel the underlying issue relating to the image of Nigeria the author has undertaken analysis of some of the most sensitive political events…


Reviewed by: John Ayam
Ajitha Tennakoon

Dr. Jayantha Kelegama was the first Professor of Economics at the University of Kelaniya which was known at the time as Vidyalankara University. As a distinguished economist, he served his country in numerous ways as an academic, a Central Banker, a policy advisor, a researcher and a writer for over four decades encompassing two conflicting policy regimes, i.e., the pre-1977 closed economy and the post-1977 open economy…


Reviewed by: Sirimal Abeyratne
Shoaib Sultan Khan

TheAga Khan Rural Support Programme: A Journey Through the Grassroots Development by Shoaib Sultan Khan is a narration of the author’s fifty-four years of experience working in the rural development sector in South Asia. The book is presented in an interesting narrative distinct from academic writings…


Reviewed by: R. Parthasarathy
Debashis Chakraborthy

WTO could undoubtedly be considered as the most influential among the different multilateral organizations established after the post-World-War period. It was founded with a view to augment the process of globalization through multilateral trade liberalization by removing all the man-made restrictions on trade…


Reviewed by: K. J. Joseph
Pradip Ninan Thomas

Christianity in India has had a long and rich history of encounter with other faiths. The multicultural and pluralistic tapestry of India made it necessary for the Christian faith to negotiate and cohabit with local idioms, customs and traditions, giving it a special character and rootedness. In this climate of co-living,..


Reviewed by: Y. Vincent Kumaradoss
A. Raghurama Raju

Giambattista Vico claimed that knowledge was always constructed by humans and never discovered in nature. He further argued that the ‘human sciences’ such as history, philosophy and law achieved knowledge and understanding from ‘within’ while ‘natural sciences’ described the external phenomena…


Reviewed by: T.K. Venkatasubramanian
Pritish Acharya

In the public domain, public knowledge of Orissa (now happily renamed Odisha) seldom goes beyond Biju / J.B. / Navin Patnaik, Tata/ POSCO projects, starvation deaths in Kalahandi, and now, the menace of Maoist violence on the Andhra-Orissa border. More polite conversation might veer around Oriya bureaucrats…


Reviewed by: Sachidananda Mohanty
Jasodhara Bagchi

The Trauma and the Triumph is the second volume of a collection of writings and documents on the partition of India of 1947 with a special emphasis on Eastern India and on gender. The first volume had come out in 2003 and this second part continues the discussion ‘focusing more fully on both East Bengal and West Bengal…


Reviewed by: Debjani Sengupta
John Falconer

The present volume is one among a number of publications that have accompanied well-curated exhibitions based on the extensive holdings of the Alkazi Collection of Photography in New Delhi, London and New York.While editor John Falconer’s detailed introduction to James Waterhouse’s life and work in India…


Reviewed by: Malavika Karlekar
Som Prakash Verma

The ten essays reprinted in this volume are intended to summarize the ‘most important information’ (p. ix) uncovered by S.P. Verma’s prolific research of many years on Mughal painting. They were originally published during the period from 1977 to 2003, deal with a mix of subjects including studies of artists, manuscripts and genres…


Reviewed by: Monica Juneja
William Dalrymple

An acknowledged master of the genre of travel writing, William Dalrymple once again brilliantly manages to hold the reader’s undivided attention with his most recent book, Nine Lives. In a skilfully restrained register, he contextualizes the diverse religious traditions of India and Pakistan within the framework of social changes…


Reviewed by: Kanchana Natarjan