AS Dulat

AS Dulat is reported to have put out, the book under review has been written without taking clearance from current-day intelligence minders. An earlier government order had it that those serving and retired from intelligence services were required to take such clearance prior to publishing anything related to their work. Dulat, former Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) head and Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer, has cocked a snook at the order with good reason. On the surface, there is nothing in the book that should see him fall afoul of powers-that-be.


Reviewed by: Ali Ahmed
Ulrike Herrmann

Economic growth and climate protection are mutually exclusive, which is why Capitalism has no future, argues business journalist Ulrike Herrmann in her new book. At the same time, she tries not to fundamentally badmouth capitalism.How does Capitalism work? Ulrike Herrmann has been dealing with this complex question for years. In her books, she has analysed how the capitalist system came into being, what its weaknesses are and why it is prone to crises.


Reviewed by: Tilmann Kulke
Sayandeb Chowdhury

As the title indicates, the book reviewed here is about Uttam Kumar, the legendary superstar of Bengali films. The author’s website describes it as the ‘first definitive cultural and critical biography’ of the actor. The descriptor may not be strictly accurate. A cursory reading indicates it is anything but a biography in the everyday sense of the term: indeed, it defies most conventional classifications.


Reviewed by: Abhik Majumdar
Anirudha Bhattacharjee

The only reason Kishore Kumar might not be counted among the global all-time great artists would be on account of the region of his birth. Had he been born into the Anglo-Saxon world, his incomparable talent and unique career would have placed him right at the top of  the talent list, with dedicated retrospectives, books, papers, and an assured place in film studies/popular music courses.


Reviewed by: Ashwini Deshpande
Nilanjana S. Roy

Despite featuring in any number of literary works in English, Delhi never got to be immortalized in the definitive way that contemporary Bombay/Mumbai was in Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City. Black River’s title is, of course, a salute to Delhi’s river, Yamuna, one of whose names is Kalindi, quite besides the fact that pollution and effluents in the last few decades have rendered her nearly black.


Reviewed by: Bharati Jagannathan
Anees Salim

In yet another riveting piece of literature, Anees Salim revives the theme of death as perceived by a young adult protagonist. The bellboy consistently maintains the ever-imposing doom of death by suicide and/or accident seen from a safe distance of ‘forced indifference’. During the course of the novel, we see the keen observer of deaths, Latif, turn into an amateur anthropologist who starts making mental notes of suicides in Paradise Lodge.


Reviewed by: Suman Bhagchandani