For an insightful article on the perils of classifying literature check out Aminatta Forna's article, "Don't Judge a Book by its Author" on The Guardian's website.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/13/aminatta-forna-dont-judge-book-by-cover
Monday, 23 February 2015
Monday, 9 February 2015
Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
For a review of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Memories of My Melancholy Whores please proceed to the easy reads page.
Monday, 2 February 2015
One Part Woman by Perumal Murugan
For a review of One Part Woman by Perumal Murugan please proceed to the Good Reads page.
The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami
For a review of The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami please proceed to the Easy Reads page.
JLF 2015 Day 3
I woke up on Friday, 23rd of Jan to receive the news that horror of horrors: Jhumpa Lahiri was the winner of the the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2015! Having read The Lowland (refer to the Overrated page for a review of the book) last year, I was shocked to learn that Lahiri had won the prize, a sentiment echoed by friends who had also read her book. Don't tell me the other books were worse than hers, was the first thought that ran through my head. Wait, is it even possible to have worse books than The Lowland was the second. I then felt that well, the judges must have been biased and taken in by Lahiri's pretty face. I then chided myself for being so nasty and instead checked out who the other contenders for the prize were. So, the other contenders were:
Bilal Tanweer: The Scatter Here is Too Great
Kamila Shamsie: A God in Every Stone
Romesh Gunesekera: Noontide Toll
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi: The Mirror of Beauty
Upon going through the list I suffered another shock--SR Faruqi had not won. Yes, I have not read his book, but after hearing him speak the previous day, I found it hard to believe that he had been by-passed in favour of Lahiri. Being a PYT definitely pays!
Post breakfast one proceeded to the fest. I first caught a session on The Art of Memoir where one was impressed by Anchee Min's frank candor. Brigid Keenan was a natural storyteller who adeptly provoked laughter from the audience. I then moved to Valmik Thapar's session on The Tiger--it was so heartening to hear that tigers are now doing better in India, though there is still a lot of work that need tot be done for their conservation. In my zest to catch BN Goswamy's talk I caught the tail end of Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar's q and a and promptly put his book The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey on my reading list. BN Goswamy's presentation on Indian masterpieces was a real feast for my soul...what exquisite works....
The post-lunch talk on Ibrahim Adil Shah I of Bijapur was such a revelation...for here was a figure experimenting with syncretism in the Deccan at the same time as Akbar was in the North--and despite being a student of Indian history I had no idea of his existence! I then caught Rick Stroud's riveting account of how British officers kidnapped a Nazi General off the occupied island of Crete--definitely great spy movie material. The last session of the day was a set of fun readings by Jonathan Gil Harris and Sam Miller of their accounts of Firangis in India.
Thus ended my sojourn at the JLF in 2015. I was taking back with me new knowledge and perspectives, despite organisational glitches. Perhaps, next year I'll catch the fest from the comfort of my home.
Bilal Tanweer: The Scatter Here is Too Great
Kamila Shamsie: A God in Every Stone
Romesh Gunesekera: Noontide Toll
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi: The Mirror of Beauty
Upon going through the list I suffered another shock--SR Faruqi had not won. Yes, I have not read his book, but after hearing him speak the previous day, I found it hard to believe that he had been by-passed in favour of Lahiri. Being a PYT definitely pays!
Post breakfast one proceeded to the fest. I first caught a session on The Art of Memoir where one was impressed by Anchee Min's frank candor. Brigid Keenan was a natural storyteller who adeptly provoked laughter from the audience. I then moved to Valmik Thapar's session on The Tiger--it was so heartening to hear that tigers are now doing better in India, though there is still a lot of work that need tot be done for their conservation. In my zest to catch BN Goswamy's talk I caught the tail end of Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar's q and a and promptly put his book The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey on my reading list. BN Goswamy's presentation on Indian masterpieces was a real feast for my soul...what exquisite works....
The post-lunch talk on Ibrahim Adil Shah I of Bijapur was such a revelation...for here was a figure experimenting with syncretism in the Deccan at the same time as Akbar was in the North--and despite being a student of Indian history I had no idea of his existence! I then caught Rick Stroud's riveting account of how British officers kidnapped a Nazi General off the occupied island of Crete--definitely great spy movie material. The last session of the day was a set of fun readings by Jonathan Gil Harris and Sam Miller of their accounts of Firangis in India.
Thus ended my sojourn at the JLF in 2015. I was taking back with me new knowledge and perspectives, despite organisational glitches. Perhaps, next year I'll catch the fest from the comfort of my home.
JLF 2015 Day 2
Had a busy time in Jaipur hanging out with the friends and returned to an equally busy time in Delhi with family and catching both a symposium on Nauras: The Many Arts of the Deccan and the India Art Fair, hence the really late updates on JLF.
As mentioned earlier, Day 2 of JLF was witness to a lot of rain; but not a surprise as all the weather forecasts had been predicting rain on Thursday for over a month. So, when William Dalrymple excused the failure of the organisers to make provisions for the rain by the trite observation that Jaipur is a desert and therefore rain was never quite expected, I failed to find the humour in the statement. Needless to say, given that the festival was a Teamwork production, chaos reigned supreme. The venues were reduced from 6 to 3 for the first half of the day and programs shrunk from 60 to 30 minute presentations. Not a bad idea....BUT why did the information desk have no information about what was happening when and where? The volunteers were clueless every time there was a deviation from the schedule. Sure, there were updates being posted on the festival's FB page, but there was no accessible wifi at the venue and 3G was barely operable, hence, as an audience member one could not access the updates. Not surprisingly, I missed the session on Terror and Faith as it's venue was changed and no one could tell me where it was!!!!!
So, what were the highlights of the day? Excellent sessions by Neil Rennie on Pirates of the Indian Ocean, SR Faruqi on Of Beauty and Truth (I'm definitely picking up his book The Mirror of Beauty to read) Daud Ali on Courtly culture in Early Medieval India, Saryu Doshi took us through a Jain Pancha-kalyanaka Pata, LLewelyn Morgan on the Buddhas of Bamiyan. The session Writing Back was interesting as Sahar Delijani, Kamila Shamsie, Meena Kandasamy and Eimar McBride discussed the gender bias in the publishing world, making me wonder just how little change there has been since the time of the Bronte sisters.
The session by Mandy Ord and Annie Zaidi began enticingly...a retelling of the Anarkali legends in comic form...but once I saw that their research material was not all true to their period--a Rajput fort belonging to a later period was their model for an earlier Mughal Fort--along with their cavalier dismissal of the fact when pointed out--I tuned off!
As mentioned earlier, Day 2 of JLF was witness to a lot of rain; but not a surprise as all the weather forecasts had been predicting rain on Thursday for over a month. So, when William Dalrymple excused the failure of the organisers to make provisions for the rain by the trite observation that Jaipur is a desert and therefore rain was never quite expected, I failed to find the humour in the statement. Needless to say, given that the festival was a Teamwork production, chaos reigned supreme. The venues were reduced from 6 to 3 for the first half of the day and programs shrunk from 60 to 30 minute presentations. Not a bad idea....BUT why did the information desk have no information about what was happening when and where? The volunteers were clueless every time there was a deviation from the schedule. Sure, there were updates being posted on the festival's FB page, but there was no accessible wifi at the venue and 3G was barely operable, hence, as an audience member one could not access the updates. Not surprisingly, I missed the session on Terror and Faith as it's venue was changed and no one could tell me where it was!!!!!
So, what were the highlights of the day? Excellent sessions by Neil Rennie on Pirates of the Indian Ocean, SR Faruqi on Of Beauty and Truth (I'm definitely picking up his book The Mirror of Beauty to read) Daud Ali on Courtly culture in Early Medieval India, Saryu Doshi took us through a Jain Pancha-kalyanaka Pata, LLewelyn Morgan on the Buddhas of Bamiyan. The session Writing Back was interesting as Sahar Delijani, Kamila Shamsie, Meena Kandasamy and Eimar McBride discussed the gender bias in the publishing world, making me wonder just how little change there has been since the time of the Bronte sisters.
The session by Mandy Ord and Annie Zaidi began enticingly...a retelling of the Anarkali legends in comic form...but once I saw that their research material was not all true to their period--a Rajput fort belonging to a later period was their model for an earlier Mughal Fort--along with their cavalier dismissal of the fact when pointed out--I tuned off!
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