Venice Biennale 2024 aims to deconstruct the Eurocentric gaze
With its storied history dating back to 1895 and a scenic setting for the thought-provoking art it showcases (although La Serenissima has been overrun by selfie-seekers lately), the Venice Biennale is a gift that keeps giving. This year’s landmark 60th edition, titled “Stranieri Ovunque—Foreigners Everywhere” (April 20-November 24, 2024), curated
‘Sanitary Panels would not have been possible without the Internet’: Rachita Taneja, creator of the webcomic and co-winner of the Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award
Cartoonist Rachita Taneja. The Bengaluru-based artist was recently honoured with the Kofi Annan Courage in Cartooning Award, alongside Hong Kong’s Zunzi. | Photo Credit: Rachita Taneja Rachita Taneja uploaded the very first strip of her now celebrated cartoon, Sanitary Panels, on Facebook in 2014—it was about the newly sworn-in Narendra
2024 Women’s Prizes: V.V. Ganeshananthan wins Fiction award for ‘Brotherless Night’; Naomi Klein takes inaugural non-fiction honours for ‘Doppelganger’
The Sri Lankan Tamil-origin author’s novel highlights the “epic-scale tragedies of the Sri Lankan civil war”. American writer V.V. Ganeshananthan won this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction on June 13 for her novel Brotherless Night, about a family torn apart by Sri Lanka’s long civil war. Its sister award, the
The exhibition “Past Disquiet” traces the histories of political engagement and solidarity of artists in the face of imperialism
“The question is not whether a given being is living or not, nor whether the being in question has the status of a ‘person’; it is, rather, whether the social conditions of persistence and flourishing are or are not possible…. Only under conditions in which the loss would matter does
Saikat Majumdar: ‘The scariest thing is the chance to live by your own convictions’
aikat Majumdar is one of the most talked about writers in India today. The author of critically acclaimed novels such as Silver Fish, The Firebird, The Scent of God, and The Middle Finger as well as important non-fiction works like College: Pathways of Possibility and Prose of the World, Majumdar
Tribute | Ismail Kadare (1936-2024): A writer who used metaphor and irony to reveal nature of tyranny
Novelist Ismail Kadare, who has died aged 88, used his pen as a stealth weapon to survive Albania’s paranoid communist dictator Enver Hoxha. His sophisticated storytelling—often likened to that of George Orwell or Franz Kafka—used metaphor and irony to reveal the nature of tyranny under Hoxha, who ruled Albania from
Francis Newton Souza Went Against all the Aesthetic Norms of His Day to Paint Poverty, Religion, and Sexuality
The artist Keren Souza Kohn, daughter of the legendary artist Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002), narrated an anecdote her father had once shared with her at his New York apartment. It was about his days in his home State, Goa, where he would often sketch outdoors and small crowds of onlookers
Rediscovered 1956 Buddhist Monk Diary Reveals Insights on Post-Independence India
On March 29, 1956, 27-year-old Bandara Manatunga left his hometown of Nuwara Eliya in Sri Lanka and embarked on a singular expedition to India. His destination was Nalanda, where he would be ordained as a “temporary” monk in the Buddhist monastery there. During his two-month stay in India, Manatunga maintained
Paperclip: Website Run by Seven Friends is Making Waves by Sharing Intriguing Stories from India’s Past to Counter Misinformation
“Stay curious!” is the tagline that comes at the end of all posts by Paperclip, a digital media house dedicated to storytelling run by a team of seven operating out of multiple locations, from Chicago to Kolkata. The description on its website reads: “Through captivating storytelling, Paperclip aims to inform,
Short Story | India: A Bengali Story In Translation
A small market had sprung up where the asphalt highway turned to the left. The village stood behind it, hidden from view by a dense bamboo grove. The village had no electricity, but the market did. There were three tea-shops, two for sweetmeats, three for garments, one stationery store and