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From August 02, 2007 to August 08, 2007
Literary Pioneer
Ilakkia Chintanai, a Chennai Tamil
literary forum of 35 years’ standing,
commissions a writer each year to
write a biography of a Tamil literary
pioneer.
A Way Forward For Peace
History helps when it is left behind —
this is what Krishna Kumar marks out
as the central theme of his book,
Battle for Peace, intended as a way
forward for peace between India and
Pakistan.
Versatile Scholar
A Monograph: T.N. Shankaranarayana,
Sahitya Akademi, Ravindra Bhavan, 35,
Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs.
25.
Desika’s Philosophical Work In
Translation
Venkatanatha (1268-1369 A.D) was the
brightest star in the firmament of
Srivaishnava religion and philosophy
of the post-Ramanuja period.
Post-Colonial Indian Theatre
Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance
in India since 1947: Aparna Bhargava
Dharwadker;
Oxford University
Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai
Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 695.
Making Society Inclusive
The merits and the demerits of
caste-based reservations have been
debated for well over a century, but
have failed to bring the proponents
and opponents of the issue together.
Glimpses Of Indian Culture
On a rain-dappled evening, a glimpse
of ‘the city set on a hill which
cannot be hid’ was brought into view
as a coffee table book offering vistas
from the ever-expanding collection of
Kamla and Jagdish Mittal was launched
on Sunday.
Exploring Indian Politics
It wasn’t a book reading of the usual
sorts, but a conversation between two
intellectual minds discussing the book
India After Gandhi – The History of
the World’s Greatest Democracy.
Migrant Woes
BY END of the 1930s, farmers in
singles and in groups from various
parts of Travancore started migrating
to Malabar in search of occupation.
Performance Mantras
An organisation is not just a coming
together of competent people and
state-of-the-art machinery.
Pulling Out All The Stops
Irrespective of the fortunes of the
national team, cricket will always
continue to command attention.
When The Crown Trembled
The story of the spread of European
power in India, even before 1857, was
not one of unresisted colonisation.
In The Showing
Emotional truth’ or an empathetic
human quality is what the author
Adichie sets store by.
Remarkable Self-Portrait
The book traces the transformation of
a child bride into a poet and a social
revolutionary.
Women’s View
A Thousand Splendid Suns documents, in
vivid detail, the lives of Afghan
women, in both the richness and the
poverty of their lives.
Epiphanic Moments
Dharker blends the moral, the
political and the existential into a
quietly crafted poetics.
Why The Novel Matters
Through seven linked essays, Kundera
takes us on an exhilarating,
pan-European tour of the history of
the novel.
Exploring Essences
This collection testifies that Primo
Levi is much more than a reporter of
the Holocaust.
Reality Show
Though the book’s elitist canvas is
not heart-wrenching, its concerns are
real and urgent.
A Good Beginning
Despite writing plays in English since
the 1920s, Indian playwrights have
occupied an uneasy space in the
literary world and had to deal with
persistent ambiguity about their work
and achievements.
Love And Longing In The Time Of War
By weaving the war into a family’s
life, Anam brings home the price that
people pay in a time of fighting.
Unusual Poetic Images
Sridala Swami paints the most poignant
pictures with the least number of
words.
All Good News
It’s all good news here; the second
instalment of Granta’s Best of Young
American Novelists, comprising a list
of names largely unknown to the casual
reader, is a book to buy, read and
keep.
Not Quite Immortals
An interesting work that traces the
life of two diverse geniuses.
Window On A Troubled Region
The book brings much-needed basis for
optimism and yields a kind of balance
in information about both sides.
Traumatic, Yet Beautiful
Black Juice is a collection of 10
short stories by Australian author
Margo Flanagan. Aimed at the young and
the impressionable, it mocks at the
limitations of age and time.
If The Ghalibs Were English
If a review has scope for the
reviewer's taste, I'd call Urdu the
sweetest language in the world. Urdu
literature draws its inspiration - as
much as vocabulary - from Persian
literature, with technical parlance
derived from Arabic and Turkish.
Dispatches From Pakistan
Amit Barua of The Hindu was one of the
two Indian correspondents who was
allowed to report from Pakistan
towards the end of the 20th century.
The Wind Beneath Its Wings
Even in this era of information and
technology, there is a woeful dearth
of material on the early days of the
Royal Flying Corps and military
aviation.
Fresh Print
When you think of Kerala, you
naturally think of high levels of
female literacy.
The Smart Indian Manager
It is tempting to say this book is a
“must-read”. It certainly is, but it
is actually more of a “must read and
re-read and reflect upon”.
After Midnight: A Reel Story
This is a complex novel, which is
written at many different levels of
filmmaking, of fragile relationships
and of communalism.
Talking Rafi
Some things just refuse to go out of
fashion. One of them is Mohammed
Rafi’s voice.
Quiet In The Flurry
The relationship between language and
meaning has always haunted poets.
Big Is Not Always Beautiful
Anton Chekhov, the famous short-story
writer, often lamented that he had a
mania for shortness: “Whatever I read
— my own or other people’s works — it
all seems to me not short enough.”
Politics Of The Governed
While much literature exists on mass
politics, little attention has been
given to the relationship between the
politics of identity and changes in
the economy and patterns of governance
in the post-reforms era.
Truth About Cats And Dogs
It is commonplace for pet-owners to
ascribe emotions to their animals.
Dogs seem happy when they wag their
tails and cats look sad when they
crouch.
Writing And Making History
Laura Trevelyan writes about her own
ancestors who were an integral part of
England’s intellectual aristocracy.
The Far Shores
What could be common to a 15th-century
Russian horse-dealer, a 16th-century
Venetian merchant and a Portuguese
Catholic priest, and a 17th century
cabin-boy from Cornwall? Wanderlust.
Window To Kerala’s Heritage
The articles featuring illustrious
local artistes and highlighting their
achievements has a strong regional
flavour that makes for both enjoyable
and informative reading.
In Real Time
For years now we have been asking why
Kannada playwrights are shy of
grappling with contemporary social or
political material in their works.
Muhammad's Legacy
Tariq Ramadan is a Muslim Martin
Luther,” The Washington Post once
remarked. It is doubtful whether he
would accept such ignorant and
condescending praise.
War And Peace
The book is about political
developments in Pakistan between 1997
and 2000 as seen through the eyes of a
reporter.
Renewing Identity
The author makes a careful analysis of
the ways in which Dalits aspire to
rebuild their identity.
Classics With Class Perspective
Professor Utsa Patnaik and the
LeftWord publishers deserve
appreciation for bringing out a
selection of writings by Karl Marx,
Karl Kautsky and V.I. Lenin on what
has come to be known in Marxist
discourse as the “Agrarian Question”.
Lessons From A Surgeon
Atul Gawande’s Better
www.penguinbooksindia.com) is a
collection of ‘a surgeon’s notes on
performance’. People often look to
great athletes for lessons about
performance, writes the author in the
intro.
What Spurs Sabya?
‘Kite Runner’ has inspired Sabyasachi
Mukherjee, as much as the royalty of
India
The Illustrated Tigers Of India
Summers in Middle India can be
killing. But a few years ago, I
decided to brave the searing heat and
make a trip to the Bandhavgarh
National Park in Madhya Pradesh.
Born To Be Free
Salma Ahmed’s reputation precedes her.
The first woman entrepreneur of
Pakistan, the founder and CEO of that
country’s Women’s Chamber of Commerce
and Industry.
Have Success Formulas Become Blasé?
At one time, especially in the
industrial West, the market used to be
flooded with books of “How to....”
genre, giving basket-loads of tips on
how to succeed in whatever enterprise
or activity one undertakes.
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