INTERVIEW We Now Have Means to Actively Build a Community and Train and Help Emerging Translators: Daisy Rockwell
The creative partnership of Daisy Rockwell and Geetanjali Shree is embodied in Daisy’s moniker, Shree-Daisy. But before her International Booker–winning partnership with Geetanjali Shree, Rockwell had already translated and curated a panorama of epoch-defining Hindi-Urdu novels probing the heart-wounds of the subcontinent. Over the past two decades, Rockwell has brought
Geetanjali Shree Interview: Language as Protest in ‘Our City That Year
Geetanjali Shree’s 1998 novel, Hamara Shahar Us Baras, rendered into English by Daisy Rockwell as Our City That Year (Penguin, 2024), is the story of a communalising city as experienced by a vulnerable narrator grappling with the task of lending language to the self-estrangement of her secular friends. The narrator, who is not
Freedom at Midnight Review: Book vs Web Series-Partition Through Two Lenses
Inside 10 Downing Street, the rhythms of a relentless clock fill the air. “May I have time to think?” Lord Mountbatten pleads, facing the burden of a crumbling empire. “You may,” Prime Minister Clement Attlee responds, “but be warned, Mountbatten—time is the one thing we’re running short of.” The ticking
“Past in Present: A Journey Through Downtown Srinagar” | A Frontline Perspectives Documentary
WATCH | Past in Present: A Journey Through Downtown Srinagar | A Frontline Perspectives Documentary This documentary offers a comprehensive look at Downtown Srinagar, a place of great significance for anyone curious about South Asian heritage, urban evolution, or the intersections of culture, politics, and art. | Video Credit: Reported,
Book Review| Weena Pun’s ‘Kancchi’: A Captivating Tale of a Mother’s Search for her Missing Daughter in Nepal
One dark November morning in 1995, Maiju surreptitiously escorts her 16-year-old daughter down the slippery, rain-drenched slopes of Torikhola in Nepal to help her catch a bus to her aunt’s house in Pokhara. Maiju never hears from her daughter again. Kanchhi never reaches her aunt’s place. What happened to Kanchhi?
Decriminalising Cannabis: Is it Time to Weed out Taboos and Embrace the Plant as India’s Cultural Gift to the World?
This year marked the 50th anniversary of the Hindi film Aap Ki Kasam, J. Om Prakash’s directorial debut starring Rajesh Khanna, Mumtaz, and Sanjeev Kumar in an unconventional romantic drama. The film was a major success, aided no doubt by its memorable soundtrack, which featured songs by the iconic composer
Book Review: Manu Gandhi’s Diary is a Quiet Chronicle of the Final Years of the Mahatma
In the months before Partition, Mahatma Gandhi travelled across India trying to prevent communal violence and what would become one of the 20th century’s greatest tragedies. Among those who witnessed his ultimately futile mission up close was his grandniece, Manu Gandhi. Her diary captures an intimate portrait of hope against
Why Millennials and Gen Z Swear by Sally Rooney
In one of the early chapters of Sally Rooney’s new novel, Intermezzo, the protagonist, Ivan, a 22-year-old chess player, invites Margaret, a 36-year-old programme director at the arts centre hosting an amateur chess tournament-cum-workshop, to the house where he has been put up by the organisers. As Margaret weighs in her
William Radice, Renowned Tagore Translator and Bengali Scholar, Dies at 73
William Radice, the English poet, Tagore translator, and scholar of Bengali language and literature passed away on November 10. He was 73. I was his oldest Bengali friend, but I never worked out what led him to make Bengali the focus of his life’s work. I honestly can claim no
Book Review: ‘Toward Eternity’ sees Celebrated Translator Anton Hur Coming into his Own As a Writer
In physics, singularity is the point where known physical laws break down and predictions become impossible. The Big Bang theory suggests our universe emerged from such a singularity. That is an infinitely dense, hot point which expanded and cooled. At this moment, conventional concepts of time and space lose meaning.