Books

Lamentations of a Debonair Poet

Madhavankutty Pillai

The life of Adil Jussawalla and the despair of poetry in India

‘It’s All in the Soil’

Devika Bakshi

Kamila Shamsie’s new novel animates history with textures of fruit, blood and stone

Her Spiritual Crisis

Mihir Srivastava

I draw naked people. Sketching live models is my hobby. I have drawn over a hundred individuals from all walks of life, and Conversations in the Nude captures my tryst with nudity.

Experiments in Meritocracy

Devika Bakshi

Amy Chua’s controversial new book suggests ‘outsiders’ can and do succeed in unequal America—but at what cost?

Punk Resistance in Putin’s Russia

Ullekh NP

In her new book, Russian-American writer Masha Gessen puts the spotlight on the spirit of defiance that marks Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot

The Place You Keep Going Back To

Chinki Sinha

Sankarshan Thakur’s biography of Nitish Kumar is also an intimate portrait of Bihar, a state you may be forced out of but cannot really ever leave

The Advantages of Failure

Madhavankutty Pillai

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, on underachievement as a good thing

The Eternal Poet

Rahul Pandita

A new biography of Sahir Ludhianvi brings to life the poet who changed the idiom of Hindi cinema lyrics

Tyranny of the Troll Reviewer

Indrajit Hazra

The withdrawal of Wendy Doniger’s book reflects the increasing influence of the hyper-critic who reads not for pleasure or knowledge, but to spot offensiveness

On the occasion of the publication in English of his novel One Part Woman, Tamil writer Perumal Murugan talks about growing up a reader in a family of farmers and getting into trouble writing about caste