Meeting Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Mohandas Gandhi in this historical fiction novel
The Map and The Scissors is a searing portrayal of the lives of two powerful men, Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The two men, a ‘scaffold of bones’ in appearance, were unbreakable with a steely resolve. Both dreamt of freedom from British rule but in irreconcilably different ways. An incisive analysis of their […]
The Artists Become the Muses: Books About Movies You Must Read
Love films? Why not give these 8 books about movies a chance and dive into the good, the glamourous, and the down right scandalous world of the film industry? It would not be wrong to say that literature and cinema are two sides of the same coin. The tradition of adapting books to screen goes […]
Why The Henna Artist deserves to be a New York Times Bestseller
Enter a world of post-Independence Jaipur and royalty, following a young woman’s quest for freedom in this New York Times Bestseller by Alka Joshi. In the 1950s, a seventeen year old Lakshmi flees an abusive marriage from her rural village, Ajar in Uttar Pradesh. She goes to work in Agra for three years, where the […]
The Stars are His Bones: A photography-haiku book you cannot miss
Haiku inspired by the Upanishads, photographs that capture Calcutta. One written by an Irish poet in Irish and English, one clicked by an Indian photographer. Seemingly disconnected dots are joined beautifully by Irish poet Gabriel Rosenstock and Kolkata-based photographer Debiprasad Mukherjee, whose latest collaboration, The Stars are His Bones, a photography-haiku collection that takes the […]
Abanindranath’s House of Stories: An art book that is both history and adventure
A child enters art namelessly, in colours and light, sound and spirit. In our earliest memories, a dark corner may have contained a monster. And the loudness of thunderstorms, its gnashing teeth. Yet, through persuasion and the comfort of a parent or of a snuggly bed, we transform them into adventures with the intangible. We […]
Why this Kashmir woman’s story resonates with every Indian woman
Birds of the Snows is a story of Kashmir and its people, but also of a woman’s struggle to break from the clutches of patriarchy. Translated by noted Kashmiri writer, critic, and poet Dr. Tarannum Riyaz from the Urdu original Barf Aashna Parindey, Birds of the Snows traces the story of a family in Kashmir, […]
Capturing the essence of Mumbai city with Anju Makhija
Prakruti Maniar caught up with Sahitya-Akademi-winning author Anju Makhija, whose Mumbai Traps is a collection of plays, which help us “experience Mumbai, where glamour, greed, communalism, social and surreal situations depict life in a state of perpetual restlessness.” Excerpts. How did Mumbai Traps come about? Why did you decide that it should be a play […]
Goa Books: Read your way through India’s favourite holiday destination
When we think of Goa, we often think of beaches and parties. But do we think of Goa books? For those who have been or plan to visit this beautiful holiday destination, you must know that Goa has some a healthy literary culture, some lovely bookstores, and fantastic writers who have written several books on […]
Glory and decadence: Narach by Debarati Mukhopadhyay, now in English
A lot of things about the blurb and the first chapter of Chronicles of the Lost Daughters by Debarati Mukhopadhyay (translated by Arunava Sinha from Bengali, and published by Harper Collins India) remind you of Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. The blurb refers to a family who “end up in an overcrowded depot near […]
