TERROR AND THE POSTCOLONIAL (Ed.) ELLEKE BOEHMER & STEPHEN MORTON

We live in a time of terror where the war has come right to our doorstops. Thus, it was interesting to read this collection of essays which looks at the hydra of terror as a lived experience whether in its real or literary form. Divided into three parts, many of the essays in this book …

Short Notes: The Lessons by Naomi Alderman

One reviewer describes Naomi Alderman's campus novel The Lessons to Donna Tartt's The Secret History. I agree. Both books promise much but deliver little.She would have just been shattered, the parts of herself which fitted together so neatly now suddenly painful, never again as comfortable as they had been.Set in Oxford, the novel is about …

Three Twenty-First Century Novels

Though I love books of the vintage kind, occasionally I do read books published recently. Here are brief descriptions of three books that were published in the second decade of the current century.THE CASE OF THE MAN WHO DIED LAUGHING (2010)Vish Puri, India's most 'private' detective is the creation of author Tarquin Hall. In this, …

Hindi Pulp: Surender Mohan Pathak’s Dhabba

Surender Mohan Pathak is a well-known name in the field of Hindi pulp literature. Author of nearly 300 crime novels, he has a number of series and stand-alones to his credit. The earliest series that he wrote is the Sunil series. Sunil Kumar Chakravarty is a reporter at the daily Blast in the fictitious city …

A Forgotten War: Easterine Kire’s Mari

When you go hometell them of usand say for your tomorrowwe gave our todayInscription on the war memorial of the 2nd Division at the Kohima War CemeteryThe Battle of Kohima was called the "Stalingrad of the East", so vital was it that the British wrest the land back from the Japanese who had conquered it. …

Nightmare or Real? Emma Donoghue’s Room

"Just because you've never met them doesn't mean they're not real. There's more things on earth than you ever dreamed about."Though I had heard a lot about Emma Donoghue's Room, I was wary of picking it up since I thought that the writer was simply cashing in on certain screaming headlines that hit the world's …

Ties that Bind: There was No One at the Bus Stop

Love was one thing, sin was another – and although it was difficult to tell love from sin, Trina had learnt to identify some of the signs.Ties that bind human beings together are difficult to unravel. What is that which holds a man with a woman? Love? Affection? Pity? Or simply a necessity, a need …