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Off
the shelf
Oriental
myths and realities
V. N. Datta
From Empire to Orient:
Travellers to the Middle East (1830-1926)
by Geoffrey P. Nash. I.B. Tauris, London.
Pages VII+247. £ 24.
Since
the formulation of Edward
Said’s Orientalism, the Imperial encounter has been viewed in
the context of West’s political and cultural domination of the East.
However, in the book under review, the author, Geoffrey Nash, Lecturer
in English at the University of Sunderland, challenges Said’s
conceptual framework of fixed and linear progression.
INTERVIEW
Venice is his
muse
Harsh Desai
His
nearly unforgettable first
book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, based in Savannah,
Georgia which had blazed international best seller charts for several
months if not years, after its publication in 1994, was slowly being
forgotten and those who remembered, asked whether John Berendt was just
another one-book wonder?
A billion issues
and development
Meeta Rajivlochan
A Billion is Enough: India’s Population Problem—a Way Out
by Ashok Gupta.
Ajanta Books, New Delhi. Pages 139. Rs 195.
The
methods for depopulating
India seem to excite the Indian elite no end. In Kaliyuga, there will be
no benedictions to have a thousand sons. That is the only possible
reason why the author of this beautifully argued book on human
development in India thinks it fit to title it as one on the population
problem of India. Perhaps he has been swayed by the tremendous
saleability of ideas about depopulating India.
Gripping
tale of Indian worker abroad
R. L. Singal
Autobiography of an Indian
Indentured Labourer: Munshi Rahman Khan (1874-1972)
Shipra Publications.
Pages 271. Rs 495
Large-scale
emigration of unskilled labourers from British India took place in the
19th century. These labourers, who were hardly making both ends meet and
living in extreme poverty here, found work on much better wages in South
America, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean (islands situated in the sea
between the West Indies and Central and South America).
Latest Potter is
most successful
James T. Madore
Harry
Potter hasn't lost a bit of
his magic. The sixth book about the boy wizard, Harry Potter and the
Half-Blood Prince, has sold more than 11 million copies since its
U.S. release on July 16, the publisher, Scholastic Corp. says.
Life
and language
Tracing the origin of everyday
expressions in English, Raj Chatterjee observes
that there are few books in the world so replete with words of wisdom as
the Old Testament.
To
any lover of the language, a
fascinating study is provided by tracing everyday expressions in English
which have their roots in that bestseller of all times, the Bible.
Here are a few examples of what I have come across in my ‘research.’7
When
poetry transcends the language barrier
C.D. Verma
Angrezi Ke Shreshth Kavi aur
Unki Shreshth Kavitayen
by Kuldip Salil
Rajpal & Sons, Delhi, Pages 163. Rs 190.
IT is rightly said that poetry
transcends language barrier. Prof Kuldip Salil, a former teacher of
English in Delhi University, has substantiated this fact in his just
published book Angrezi ke Shreshth Kavi aur Unki Shreshth Kavitayen. It
is perhaps the first book of its kind. Works of some English poets have
been translated from time to time, but an anthology of English verse in
Hindi is certainly something new. What is significant is that it is a
translation faithful to the original.
Back
of the book
-
The Girls from
Overseas
by Nergis Dalal. Penguin
Pages 210, Rs 200
-
The Wives of Bath
by Wendy Holden. Pages 468
£2.99
-
You Remind Me of Me
by Dan Chaon. John Murray,
London. Pages 356. £6.90.
-
Wolves of the Calla
The Dark Tower
by Stephen King. Hodder
& Stoughton.
Pages 616. £9.40.
-
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt
— The Musical Messiah
by Kanchan Mathur. Pages
xii+132. Price not stated.
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