Posts Tagged With: Literature
Mom and Mavis
Given it is called the Man Asian Literary Prize, there’s something to be said for the fact that a woman has finally won it. On Thursday, it was announced that Kyung-sook Shin, author of Please Look After Mom, had been awarded the Man Asian Literary Prize, making her the first woman and the first South Korean [...]
Deborah Baker in Mumbai
I’ve lost a notebook (again). It was a Moleskine (weep). This has goaded me into opening up a notebook that I haven’t lost (yet) and transferring its scribbles to the blog. It turns out I’ve done a lot of scribbling in there, so there’s something of a backlog to get through. These notes are from [...]
Dear Liar
come to the theatre, or open this book, and we’ll lie to you. Ian Leslie writes this in this neat little article titled “Are Artists Liars?” The answer is, yes. An imaginative flight of fantasy is, if we look at its bare bones, a lie. The arts are a “a safe space into which our [...]
Soul to Soul
This is actually going to be a quick-ish post because my hand is in serious pain. Why? Because I spent all evening writing, by hand, using one of those Mitsubishi dot pens that I hoarded for writing exam papers. They still do write with lovely smoothness although all the writing probably felt lovelier because I [...]
The Russians
I don’t do New Year resolutions. There are enough unexpected disappointments in life without me setting myself up for more. This year, however, I have resolved to do something. When I decided to do it, I hadn’t realised it was a New Year resolution but it happened in early January and it’s a resolution, so [...]
Future Sense
If I knew Swedish and had read “Tandooriälgen” in 2006, I wonder if I would have found Gary Shteyngart’s “Super Sad True Love Story” stale. Because “Once Upon a Time in Scandinavistan“, the English translation of “Tandooriälgen” which was published this month, is certainly not feeling novel. Zac O’Yeah and Shteyngart have the same idea [...]
A Whole Not-So-New World
Ever since I read “Super Sad True Love Story“, reading newspapers feels like being faced with Nostradamus’ prophecies. Gary Shteyngart’s novel “Super Sad True Story” is set in the future but it’s not science fiction. It’s a prophecy and if juggernaut of politics and economics heads along the path that it seems set upon, Shteyngart’s [...]
A Doddle of a Book
So much for me rooting for “Room” although I must admit, I do feel a bit like the Nostradamus of Booker because I didn’t think Tom McCarthy’s “C” was going to win and I thought “The Finkler Question” was a delight. It’s very, very funny but more importantly for me, Howard Jacobson‘s language is outstanding. [...]
Word Perfect
It’s easy to imagine Gyan Prakash’s “Mumbai Fables“as a neat nine-part documentary that covers the history and story of Bombay. Nine parts because there are nine chapters, all of which are extensively researched and engagingly written. Even though the book has its share of pictures, photos and drawings, much of Prakash’s writerly energies are spent [...]
Girl talk -II
(Note: those looking for Mallu men, please go to Girl Talk.) Imagine you’re a woman who was raped about ten years ago, when you were a teenager, by someone you knew and that someone was never arrested. You’ve grown up now. No one looks at you and thinks there’s anything wrong. You have a job, [...]
World Domination
