Diaspora and the global market
Rumina Sethi
Globalization and Diaspora: Special Issue of South Asian Review.
edited by K. D. Verma. Volume 24, Number 1. Pages 274. Price not stated.
John Hawley’s account of an evening at the Bellagio Centre in Italy is a fitting beginning to the central themes of globalisation and diaspora. Hawley recounts how Habib Tanvir presented his ideas to a large group of foreign academics in Hindi to their complete befuddlement.

Books received: English

Bold and banned
Sudhir Kumar
That Taslima Nasrin (born-1962), the non-conformist Bangladeshi writer-in-exile, has recently been awarded The UNESCO Madanjeet Singh Prize for the promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence would come as no surprise to her readers. An impressive litany of honours—including the French Human Rights Award, European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize, International Humanist Award and the American Free thought Heroine Award—underscore her recognition as a committed writer and crusader for human rights and freedom of expression.

This poet is in a soup
Aditi Garg
Something Black in the Lentil Soup
by Reshma S. Ruia. Penguin. Pages 245. Rs 250.
Legendary poetry traverses time and makes place for itself amongst great pieces of art and literature. People are equally intrigued by the lives the people who create these pieces of art. It acts as an inspiration for those who aspire to be in the league of Wordsworth and Shelley. It is rightly said that of all kinds of ambition, that which pursues poetical fame is the wildest.

Oppression as part of gender relations
Belu Jain-Maheshwari
Countering Gender Violence: Initiatives Towards Collective Action in Rajasthan.
by Kanchan Mathur. Sage Publications, New Delhi. Pages 379. Rs 395.
Understanding gender relations has become a subject of much discussion, debate and discourse. Power is seen as a central characteristic of gender relations; traditional values give men proprietary rights over women. Gender relations are formed through social institutions, cultural practices and ascription of status.

Who mauled my democracy?
Kanwalpreet
Indian Democracy: Meaning and Politics edited by Rajindra Vora and Suhas Palshikar.
Sage Publications. Pages 447. Rs 680.
Democracy, originally a political principle, has now been enlarged to include economic, social as well as ethical ideas. It being one of the most emotionally provocative words in political vocabulary, in India, unfortunately, democracy is still not understood in the latter sense (economic, social and ethical). Though India has gradually evolved her own system of governance, much improvement is desired.

Capitol crime
Shastri Ramachandaran
The Zero Game
by Brad Meltzer. Coronet. Pages 460. Rs 200
Capitol Hill’s most famous intern was, without doubt, Monica Lewinsky. Now along comes another guy, Brad Meltzer. He too was an intern at 19. He has put his knowledge of and proximity to power to much better use: to write scorching thrillers of high politics as the perfect pitch for crime and swindles. Senators and Representatives are so caught up with the internal pressures of legislating that they hardly apply their mind to the laws they pass and the funds they sanction.

“Style is ultimately your own character”
Veteran journalist Inderjit Badhwar, who has spent the better part of his life writing headlines, is now making them. His novel La Chambre Des Parfums, the French version of his novel Sniffing Papa, published in India in 2002, recently won the French literary award Le Prix Litteraire. It was voted the best foreign debut novel of 2004 by a jury comprising France's leading writers, intellectuals and filmmakers.

Signs and signatures
Fury of a tormented poet
Darshan Singh Maini
SYLVIA Plath who became a cult figure adored by the American youth when on the fateful day of February 11, 1963, she committed a fiery suicide, thrusting her head into a gas oven. Her suicide was, at bottom, a violent finis to the war of the selves. She saw no way of ending otherwise. Her poetry was in reality an extension of the inner war, though ipso facto, it also served to dissipate the fevers raging in her blood and bones since early childhood.

Hindi review
Readable account of Bhave’s life
Madhur Kapila
Bhoumarshi
by Shubhangi Bhadbhade. Translated by Om Shivraj and Rita Sengar. Bhartiya Jnanpeeth.
Pages 376. Rs 250.
Writing a novel based on the life and times of an eminent historical figure has its own challenges, especially if the chosen character happens to be contemporary. This, apparently, would have been the experience of Shubhangi Bhadbhade whose original Marathi novel Bhoumarshi about ascetic Vinoba Bhave has just been brought out in Hindi by Bhartiya Jnanpeeth. The Hindi translation has been done by Om Shivraj and Rita Sengar.

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