Bhisham Sahni had once said, The only novel about Partition is Yashpals Jhootha Sach; everything else is merely a footnote. Surprisingly, however, it has taken almost fifty years for its English translation to come out. Jhootha Sach was originally published in Hindi in two volumes in 1958 and 1960…
In A Himalayan Tribe: From Cattle to Cash, a welcome sequel to Apa Tanis and Their Neighbours, Von Furer-Haimendorf describes his observations on the Apa Tanis whom he revisited after a gap of thirty-six years.
What does one make of pedestrian prose, a plot devoid of suspense and concerned mainly with the bric-a-brac of the lives of women in a Haveli? Add to this no subtlety to the characterization, no range, no depth and to think of it that it walked away with the Sahitya Akademi award!
There is a view supported by, among others, Salman Rushdie and Amit Chaudhuri that Indian Writing in English is superior to literature produced in regional languages. Obviously this opinion fails to take into account the variety, vigour and sincerity that marks writing in various Indian languages. Punjabi fiction being a case in point.
The present volume is a collection of fifteen short stories and two novellas. Ismat Chughtais name should be familiar to anyone who has even a slight interest in Urdu literature and drama. She opened new avenues for women writers in Urdu fiction. According to Tahira Naqvi, Ismat was an unselfconscious feminist (who) was doing…
Before getting into the complexities of analysing or assessing this occultly romantic yarn which self-confessedly was inspired by Russian Jewish writer Anskys (also An-sky, a pseudonym for Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport) play The Dybukk dealing with spirits, it is important to take into consideration the psychology of the novelist who through most part of his life struggled (successfully, though) to traverse the potholed path of narrative diversity that is latent between serious and the not-too-serious, the literary and the populist because this is the key to Krishan Chanders oeuvre which is considerable, and his ideology thats inherently contradictory. He has to his credit 20 novels, 30 collections of short stories, countless radio plays, and several travelogues…