Kristin Victoria Magistrelli Plys

In the last couple of years, a fairly large number of accounts ranging from popular pieces to research-based scholarship, of the Indian Emergency have appeared in the public domain. The book under review is the latest addition to the fast-expanding repertoire of Emergency writings. The Emergency, which Plys aptly calls the ‘particular totalitarian moment’, reconfigured forever, among others, the postcolonial political (and socio-economic) landscape of India. Imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi-led Congress in 1975, the Emergency was effective–thanks to the PM’s lackeys and her wayward, roguish son Sanjay Gandhi–until 1977.


Reviewed by: Nabanipa Bhattacharjee
Nachiket Chanchani

Undoubtedly, the Himalayas are a hostile terrain, especially so for those accustomed to living in the warm and relatively dry plains of India. This mountain chain has also acted as a wall that separates weather regimes and in some cases, been a deterrent to invaders. However, pilgrimage and trade, quite like its perennial river systems, have always entranced people into crossing the snowbound heights of this young yet formidable mountain chain.


Reviewed by: Lokesh Ohri
Swadesh Deepak. Translated from the original Hindi by Jerry Pinto

There are few book reviews that can begin with a ‘must-read’ recommendation and this is one. The book is an intimate capturing of an author’s journey into the dark abyss of mental illness, his inability to comprehend his reality and the world, the journey to come to terms with it—finding his way back to his words—writing this book and some more plays and then getting lost forever. This sense of loss is the kind of foreboding throughout the book—the loss of one’s capacity to write, to express in words their pain, confusion and suffocation—the loss of loved ones to an illness they don’t understand, a loss of control over one’s actions and thought, a loss of respect—loss seems to be a theme entrenched in the narrative.


Reviewed by: Surabhika Maheshwari
Stuart Blackburn

The major difference one draws upon when discussing history and fiction is that while history is based on facts, fiction is based on imagination. Given this context how would one describe a historical novel, which is a blend of history and fiction?  One of the normative responses would be that a historical novel is set in a period of history and conveys the social and cultural oeuvre of that period. This statement has undergone a sea change as the concept of history has altered in contemporary times.


Reviewed by: H Kalpana Rao
Sanjukta Dasgupta Edited and Introduced by Jaydeep Sarangi and Sanghita Sanyal

This volume arrives resolutely on the global platform of major poetic voices. Sanjukta Dasgupta’s digital footprint is strong thanks to panels and seminars, and her popularity as a performative reader of poems is well known at many cosmopolitan locations. The need for a consolidated selection of her best works was felt by many admirers.


Reviewed by: Malashri Lal
Vikram Seth

TS Eliot wrote in his essay The Three Provincialities (1922): ‘True literature has something which can be appreciated by intelligent foreigners who have a reading knowledge of the language, and also something which can only be understood by the particular people living in the same place as the author.’ Eliot goes on to mention how writers should be able to disturb the provincialism of not only a particular time but also a particular place. Vikram Seth’s poetry sets out to follow Eliot somewhat on this path.


Reviewed by: Semeen Ali