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Chilling memoir
Reviewed by Balwinder Kaur
Anne Frank’s Tales
from the Secret Annexe
By Anne Frank. Hachette
India. Pages 207. Rs 350
Anne
Frank, the
world-renowned teenage author of this collection of writings did not
live to see her eighteenth birthday because under the merciless Nazi
regime being born Jewish was a crime punishable by death. The
Netherlands in the year 1944 may seem long gone but Anne Frank’s
journal is one of the most moving accounts of this dark period in
human history, recounting with vivid clarity the terrible oppressive
years which many spent in hiding because they feared for their lives.
Focus on forgotten hero
Reviewed by Arun Gaur
The Dream of the Celt
By Mario Vargas Llosa.
Translated by Edith Grossman
Faber and Faber, London. Pages 404. £ 12.99
THE Dream of the Celt
by Mario Vargas Llosa is a fictionalised biography of Roger Casement
— an Irishman, who spent many years in Africa and Latin America as a
British consul. The original Spanish version of this work appeared
just after the announcement of 2010 Nobel Prize for Llosa. In this long narrative
we find that one by one almost all the dreams of Roger get shattered.
Celebration of many
colours of life
Saucy, tongue-in-cheek
stories are defined by strong female protagonists ready to take on
challenges
Reviewed by Amarinder Gill
Christmas Magic
By Cathy Kelly.
HarperCollins. Pages 342. Rs 350
THE spirit of Christmas
gathers all in its embrace and the book is all about it. Christmas
Magic is a collection of short stories set in Ireland. The stories
are not about leprechauns or pubs. They are chapters out of everyday
life. The characters are not larger than life but are modern women with
whom the readers can easily identify. The book begins with the tale of
two spinster sisters who shed their Victorian ideals and plan to widen
their horizons after a package is wrongly delivered to them.
Enter the Asian
juggernaut
Reviewed by Satyabrat Sinha
Towards a New Asian
Order
Ed. Ali Ahmed, Jagannath
P. Panda, and Prashant Kumar Singh
Shipra Publications.
Pages 390. Rs 995
SINCE the end of the
Cold War and over the past decade, we have been a witness to a durable
transformation in the global order. The emergence of China and India,
the resultant change in the structure of global politics necessitates
an understanding of the surfacing contours of the coming age to chart
the possible manoeuvres for India. This would enable India not only to
merely benefit from them but also promote a benign external
environment to focus on the task of socio-economic development.
Portrait of a writer’s life
Reviewed by Nonika Singh
A Life Incomplete
By Nanak Singh. Translated by Navdeep Suri
Harper Perennial. Pages
273. Rs 299
CAN translation do
justice to the original.. can it carry the essence and ethos of the
languages and the idiom in which it is rooted? Each time a translated
work comes into the market these and many other queries automatically
trail a publication. But all the niggling doubts concerning
translations are laid to rest as one goes through the translated
version of Nanak Singh’s novel Adh Khidya Phul. In the book A
life Incomplete, Nanak Singh’s grandson Navdeep Suri lives up to
the import of the original classic.
The Veiled Truth
Reviewed by Pooja Dadwal
Hidden Women – The
Ruling Women of the Rana Dynasty
By Greta Rana. Roli IndiaInk. Pages 368. Rs 395.
Nepal’s
fixation with
Jung Bahadur Rana is well known. Since decades now, the life of the
founder of the Rana dynasty has been rather well-documented. So what
does this latest offering on him, by Greta Rana, bring to the table? Well, the truth is, a
lot. Where most of the literature present has to do with the various
politically charged events surrounding his life, Hidden Women treads
on the road less travelled and in the process unfolds a unique take on
the Nepalese ruler; through the eyes of the women who held centrestage
in his life.
Finding a balance
Reviewed by Harinder Singh Bedi
Quest for Peace
By Amrik Binapal. iUniverse, USA. Pages 223. $12.56
THE book is a
compilation of poems which try to understand, analyse and rationalise
the enormous burden placed on the human mind by the fast pace of
development in today’s life. These developments have led to a
spiritual decline which is at a faster pace than any presumed forward
movement in a materialistic way. In fact, man's desire for material
things has increased to the extent that we are not able to make the
right choices and maintain the correct rhythm in our lives. This has
led to an imbalance and a loss of peace of mind.
coffee
table
Regalia
of the Raj
Power and Resistance
The Delhi Coronation Durbars.
The Alkazi Collection of Photography.
Ed Julie E Codell. Mapin. Pages Rs 3,500
THIS
volume explores how photography represented, idealised and publicised
the Delhi Coronation Durbars, occasions marking the formal coronations
of English monarchs as empress and emperors of India: Victoria in
1877, Edward VII in 1903 and George V in 1911.
Jeet Thayil’s novel in
Booker longlist
Narcopolis,
a novel by Kerala-born poet and writer Jeet Thayil, has found a place
on the 2012 Booker Prize longlist. The list, including Hillary
Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies and Nicola Barker's The Yips, was
announced recently by the Man Booker Prize committee in London. The 12
books on the longlist were chosen by a panel of judges chaired by
Peter Stothard, editor of The Times Literary Supplement.
International scene
Of playful content,
crime and grim realities
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