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Exile of the mind
Rumina Sethi
The Inheritance of
Loss
Kiran Desai.
Viking, New Delhi.
Pages 324. Rs 495.
The
unpredictable and winding
story of the teenaged heroine, Sai, begins in Kalimpong, but takes us
intermittently to the streets of New York. This kind of geographical
diversity provides us with the matrix for cross-cultural exchange both
at the mundane and the sublime levels.
Long lived the king
Himmat Singh Gill
The Raja is Dead
Shivani Singh.
Harper Collins. Pages 254. Rs 295.
"What
does it feel like, to lose everything", is a question asked
of Leela, granddaughter of the now dead Raja of Sirikot, as she readies
for a TV shoot of her ancestral palace now lying in ruins, and the
unspoken answer just about sums up the life and times of many of the
country’s princely houses that today sleep the somewhat sad and
poignant slumber of a Raj era now deeply buried in a free India which
has moved on to its new destiny.
The
world in America’s image
Raghubansh Sinha
The Second Bush
Presidency: Global Perspectives
Ed by Amit Gupta and Cherian
Samuel
Pearson-Longman in association with ORF, Delhi.
Pages 209. Rs 499.
The
short history of the Bush presidency has shown that it is not
averse to going against the conventional geo-strategic wisdom and
trudging a lonely path in search of its global mission. As such, a
global perspective of President Bush’s second term is not only a brave
attempt, but a necessary one, likely to benefit all those trying to
fathom the American foreign and security policy in the early 21st century.
Inside corporate
world
Jaswant Singh
Clueless & Co.
Pratik Basu. Rupa.
Pages 268. Rs 195.
You
start reading this book hoping to get a glimpse of the corporate
world as at the very outset the author proclaims that the institutions
and places described by him are real even if the characters are not. He
calls the narrative an "inverted tale" and a "declared
work of fiction" and describes all resemblance to "persons
living or dead or an indeterminate stage in-between" as
coincidental though not unintentional.
Dan Brown’s
Code in
Malayalam
While
a movie version of The Da Vinci Code readies for global
release in May, a Malayalam translation of Dan Brown’s bestseller will
hit the bookshelves in two weeks. This very first
translation of The Da Vinci Code—a thriller that depicts Jesus
Christ as Mary Magdalene’s husband among other details deemed
blasphemous—in any Indian language is the handiwork of publisher D.C.
Books of Kottayam district in Kerala.
Real-life figures go
fictional
When a fictional character
assumes life-like proportions, the thin line between fictional rendering
and real life personality blurs, writes Usha Bande
In
fiction and life both
readers tend to conjecture the inspirational personality behind the
portrayal. This holds good as much for painting and sculpture as for
literature. If we wonder at Leonardo da Vinci’s enigmatic Mona Lisa
trying to find her real life prototype, we also ask who could have been
behind the famous Indian sculpture of Saalbhanjika whose fascinating
smile has almost become legendary.
Translates into good
reading
Harbir K Singh
The Shoulder Bag and
Other Stories
Prem Parakash.
Translated by Rita Chaudhry.
Guru Nanak Dev University, Arnritsar.
Rs 200. Pages 226.
Guru
Nanak Dev University has been translating major Punjabi literary
works. This book of short stories is an effort in the same direction.
Translation has helped break the language barrier for readers who could
not read Punjabi. The stories carry the themes of love, human touch,
culture and beliefs. This translation has not dimmed the original
flavour. Man-woman relationships dominate most stories, which show women
in different roles as rebels, fighters pious and whores. The author has
tremendous understanding of women.
Much
more than a Spark
Robin
Stummer remembers
the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Girls of
Slender Means
Dame
Muriel Spark, one of the greatest post-war novelists and creator
of some of modern literature’s most endearing and complex characters,
including the much-loved, Mussolini-admiring Edinburgh schoolmistress
Miss Jean Brodie, has died in Italy at the age of 88.
Young
Fare
Dreams and destiny
Aditi Garg
Dance of the
Fireflies
Rucha Humnabadkar.
Frog Books. Rs. 250. Pages 244.
Some
years are for you to know your dreams and some years are for the
realisation of those dreams. Rucha Humnabadkar aptly sums up the essence
of the novel in these opening lines. Childhood is not merely all fun and
play. For the less privileged, it is fraught with abuse, hardships and
making or breaking of the spirit and fire within. It is this fire which
fuels the dreams that these children dare to nurse in the face of sheer
adversity and hope against all odds.
‘Endless Journey’
for adventure fans
Young
book lovers are set to have some adventurous experiences, at
least that's what the new book Endless Journey promises. The
book, released a few days ago by women's chess grandmaster Tania Sachdev
and teenage tennis star Ankita Bhambri, narrates how Nikki, a
12-year-old-girl, copes with adverse circumstances and comes out with
flying colours.
Honour ahead for
writers
The
Haryana Sanskrit Akademi
will honour Haryana-domicile writers and literary organisations under
various awards and grant-in-aid schemes.
Portrait of Harry
Potter
Fans
of 'Harry Potter' star Daniel Radcliffe will soon get the chance
to see him hanging, for he is all set to become the youngest person
outside the British royal family to have his portrait displayed at the
UK's National Portrait Gallery.
Confetti
SHORT TAKES
Armed with defiance
Randeep Wadehra
Better Dead than
Disabled
by Anil Kaul
Parity Paperbacks, N. Delhi.
Pages: viii + 131. Rs. 250.
When
VCR becomes a better-known acronym than Vr.C in the Army; and
when a soldier with impeccable lineage is at the receiving end of apathy
of the very same institution he serves conscientiously, it’s
understandable that he becomes bitter as gall. However, when he tempers
this bitterness with quirky humour he earns the reader’s respect. Kaul
was a tank troop commander by default when the IPKF in Sri Lanka, which
was sent there to keep peace, was suddenly forced into war.
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