By Sourya Chowdhury
Ghosal’s novel uses the quest motif as a catalyst. The main plot revolves around ethnographer Ira Chatterjee embarking on parallel journeys to locate two very different artists. However, it is difficult to sum up a work that relies so heavily on the reader’s participation; the text is ingrained in a postmodern universe where meaning is always contingent and protean.
By Bhaswati Ghosh
She returns to Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s forest-centred novel Aranyak to unearth the mystery of man’s tense relationship with the forest. It is at once a place for finding repose as it is a resource to be exploited. Staying inside a forest all by herself enables Roy to experience the communality of trees, their shunning of individual prominence.
By Karthik Venkatesh
Draupadi is anything but ideal. All fire and brimstone, she rages against the system that put her in terrible situations. Quite unlike Sita who accepts what comes her way with a meekness that is unnerving, Draupadi chooses to speak her mind. An observation that struck me with respect to Draupadi was that young girls are rarely named Draupadi.
By Adil Bhat
In building the narrative around Noor’s character, Mir opens up the window to his mind and thoughts that is both narrow and has complete disregard for the life of a Kashmiri, which appears simplistic from the outside, but is otherwise dense and located in politics. A subjective account of a protracted conflict, Khalid’s book lacks nuance and depth.
By Bhaswati Ghosh
Thwarted Escape is a woman’s journey – not only through the alleys of memory – but also in the physical realm, from the East to the West. The narrative oscillates between the author’s life in Kolkata, India and cities in the US, where she moved post-marriage. Some of the book’s most tender parts are where the author is seen synthesizing her experiences of her home country with those of her adopted one. In doing so she realizes that despite her impulse to fly abroad, the escape from her old universe never actually happened on the emotional plane.
By Rochelle Potkar
I have read an average amount of poetry, much less Dalit literature, but the other poet who comes to mind when reading Chandramohan is Meena Kandasamy. I won’t compare their poetry, because we need voices as strong as these and more to make for a compelling discourse that can affect the shifting of mindsets, and thence physical milieus and manifestations.
By Rahul Vaidya
It certainly reminds one of Orwellian dystopia; however, its focus remains limited. Totalitarianism is one logical symptom of the project of modernity itself. Barnes doesn’t try to explore this. His music thus gets lost in the noise of the times that we live in.
By Safia Begum
The work is an outcome of contemporary volatile political situation that compels the author to reflect on the gradual othering of Muslims in India. The work takes us back to a city and time, where the understanding of relations and culture was distinct and peaceful to a great extent.
By Karthik Venkatesh
The doings of Naveen Jindal of Jindal Steel in Chattisgarh to lay his hands on its precious mineral resources and Naresh Goyal of Jet Airways to control the skies above us is to be read again and again. It is a telling lesson in the serious consequences of unbridled capitalism.
By Muhammad Ashraf
‘9-11 Was There an Alternative?’ was published by Seven Stories Press in New York, to international acclaim, which proves the fact that many such dissident voices are constantly being heard by the public in an unprecedented way.
By Rashida Murphy
This anthology is a sustained call for an intellectual and emotional uprising. It situates the reader at the heart of violence against women without ever seeming shrill or censorious. Veils, Halos & Shackles was conceived as a response to the brutal gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandey on a bus in Delhi in 2012.
By RK Biswas
The book is divided into two sections – Home and Away. The sections represent the opposites, yet connected, and the poems seem to dip and swing, flow in and out like rivers that refuse to be separated.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 