Books

Firang Historian

Jyotirmoy Talukdar

Academic Jonathan Gil Harris is writing the history of the poor Europeans, as distinct from White Mughals, who settled here and became Indian

Whose Hostages?

Rahul Pandita

A brilliant account of the 1995 kidnappings of six foreign nationals in Kashmir reveals shocking details of the involvement of the Indian State

Reading the Reader

Sumana Roy

On Tagore is as much about reading Rabindranath as it is about Amit Chaudhuri reading himself as a reader

The Long and Short of a Story

Sohini Chattopadhyay

A novel is like building a house and a short story like furnishing a room, declares Anjum Hasan, who now has both under her belt

Mama Em’s Cope Book

Kalpish Ratna

In literature focused on insanity, the gaze seems to have shifted from the insane. The patient is no longer the victim; that status now belongs to the caregiver

The Constant Writer

Vaibhav Vats

Ramachandra Guha on the thrills of research, the insecurity of academics and their love of jargon, and why he doesn’t take holidays

Global Capital Rules, Okay?

Aresh Shirali

Not quite. Which explains both the strength and weakness of this ‘economic travelogue’ that tries to spot tomorrow’s winners

Between Pre-modern and Modern Times

Basharat Peer

The adventures of Musharraf Ali Farooqi, who quit his job as a journalist in Pakistan to work in a packaging factory in Toronto and then at a fast-food joint, and translated and wrote books late into the night

Meeting God after 10 Years

Murtaza Razvi

They had parted ways and made up again after his 28th birthday. Only, He was no longer the compassionate God he knew. An extract from the forthcoming novel, God’s Own Progeny, by Pakistani journalist Murtaza Razvi, who was found murdered at his home last week