English literature

VS Naipaul: Writing the World

Durba Chattaraj

With his shifting way of seeing, VS Naipaul articulated a new configuration of all that we know

Manmatha Nath Dutt—Sanskrit and English

Bibek Debroy

Had Manmatha Nath Dutt studied in Oriental Seminary, Rabindranath Tagore would have known him personally, as a co-pupil

The Last Sigh of the Absolute Lover

S Prasannarajan

An ageing memoirist returns to the saddest of love stories in The Only Story, the new novel by Julian Barnes

Salman Rushdie: Novelist of the Now

S Prasannarajan

Salman Rushdie’s new novel is an American classic with Indian ancestry

Shakespeare: My Master’s Voice

Rajat Kapoor

I went to Shakespeare’s burial place in Stratford when we had gone with Hamlet for a three-week tour to the UK. I said a little prayer. I don’t believe in god or religion, I asked for something which is now between me and him

James Shapiro: World’s a Stage

Nandini Nair

The most imaginative reinterpretations of the Bard are being seen in Asia, says the foremost Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro

Shakespeare: Favourite Lines From the World’s Most Quoted Writer

Open

Full of sound and fury, signifying everything

Shakespeare: The Play’s the Thing

Nandini Nair

He understands the personal better than a shrink and the political better than a pundit. He explains it all better than a sage. An Open celebration of the world’s greatest storyteller