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Back of the book
Secret Histories
by Emma Larkin. John Murray,
London. Pages 232. £ 5
 THE
Burmese joke that Burmese Days, Animal Farm and Nineteen
Eighty-Four are a trilogy about their country. But modern Burma is a
dark and dangerous place, ruled by one of the oldest and most brutal
dictatorships in the world. In search of the inspiration for George
Orwell’s uncanny prophecies, Larkin follows in his footsteps. She
finds his terrifying visions shockingly realised, an unwitting legacy
that permeates the land of Secret Histories like its scents of
betel nut and freshly-brewed tea, and the sticky breezes of the
Irrawaddy delta.
Swan Music
by Sarah Harrison. Hodder &
Stoughton, London. Pages 502. £ 10.99.
Bryn Mancini was born
under a lucky star. Love, success and prosperity have all come easily.
As he celebrates his silver wedding, he has all his heart can desire:
beautiful wife, handsome grown-up children and the house of his dreams.
But on this day of celebration, something unimaginably dreadful is
drifting downstream to his door. Harrison’s earlier best-selling
novels include Life After Lunch and The Dreaming Stones.
Her powerful new novel is a story about the fight against fate. It is
set in the present – but a present over which the past casts its long
shadow.
Survival and Emancipation – Notes from Indian Women’s Struggles
by Brinda Karat. Three Essays
Collective, Gurgaon. Pages 284. Rs 275 (Hardcover Rs 595).
This is a comprehensive
book on the wide-ranging concerns of the women’s movements in India
from a left perspective. Karat’s active involvement in women’s
struggles adds to the strength of her narrative. It weaves together
experiences and critical observations to create a work of great
theoretical and practical import.
The Terracotta Warriors
by Maurice Cotterell. Headline,
London. Pages 298. £ 7.99.
Legend has it that in 210
BC, the first emperor of unified China, Ch’in Shi Huangdi, decreed
that after his death his body would be clothed in jade, cast adrift in a
lake of mercury within a pyramid, and protected by an everlasting army.
In 1974, archaeologists discovered the first of more than 8000 life-size
terracotta warriors buried near the pyramid tomb of Shi Huangdi,
confirming that the legend was more than myth.  Cotterell, author of The
Tutankhamun Prophecies and The Mayan Prophecies, decodes the
long-lost secrets of China’s terracotta army to reveal the farewell
message of the first emperor – the remarkable secrets of heaven, hell
and immortality.
Views: Yours and Mine
by Humra Quraishi. UBS Publishers.
Pages 348. Rs 245.
This is a collection of
writings of a columnist, who, over the years, has interacted with a
multitude of people, the so-called who’s who, kept in touch with the
happenings and recorded the same in her journalistic writings. According
to the author, "the very definition of the who’s who is getting
far too confusing and twisted, for it is the politically smart and
financially sound who are making it big, sidelining and bypassing the
genuine". Bad Time Tales and Kashmir – The Untold Story
are Quraishi’s other books.
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