Ramaswamy shares insights on his upcoming projects and, among other things, thoughts on whether AI could ever be a serious translator
It was not often that I received odd parcels. True, my job at the paper did occasionally warrant a few peculiar hate-mail or rebuttals, but this was nothing of that sort
“All literature is regional; or conversely, no literature is regional”—is a common sentiment to have today, but I had first read those lines from Joyce Carol Oates, in her preface to a book of stories by one of Canada’s most gifted storytellers, Alistair MacLeod. In MacLeod’s short stories, his Cape Breton Island was a refrain through which the momentous lives of his ordinary characters came through.
Izumi Suzuki was little known outside of Japan during her short lifetime. The Japanese author and actress had remained a cult figure most of her life.
Everett’s breezy, fast-moving retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) is about putting in some due respect.
I plead but I know there is nothing I can do. Akbar, in a rare fit of courage, tries to intervene. But the old man does not budge. Maybe he knows about Mina and me.
Sometime ago, a writer reached out to me with a request. His debut novel was being published later in the year and he was wondering if I would be open to reviewing it. I was aware of the book, having read it when it was still only a draft. The author was not someone I only knew, either, but a mentor who had supported my writing in many ways, even through monetary means. Refusing him, then, felt tantamount to betrayal. But I had to in the end, and though he understood, I still came out of the exchange feeling guilty of being unhelpful or, worse, ungrateful.
The eight girls in Headshot clearly hope to escape the chaos of their lives in the ring.
Perhaps Martin Amis’s works do not grab me for the most part because it veers too far away from the humanism of, say, Saul Bellow—a writer Martin greatly admires and has written about extensively.
It is the story of young lovers, Kumaresan and Saroja, who get secretly married and run away to Kumaresan’s village to start a new life. Murugan has written before about the intricate tragedies of domestic life and how they bring about the worst of our community.
Harry’s dig at the paparazzi is the underlying theme of his life-story.
These characters, human and machine alike, are invited to provide witness statements about their working environment to a commission, which form the entirety of the novel—a design that helps Ravn bring about an atmosphere of tension.
Amit Chaudhuri is one of our most gifted writers, a Bengali novelist and musician with an accomplished repertoire.
Andy Warhol suggested they tape their conversations on his Sony Walkman, to which Truman Capote agrees.
She wrote with vitality, a realness that seemed somewhat dangerous on paper.
In The Last White Man, Hamid uses an anodyne, clinical voice to set an atmosphere of unease of a white society panicking within, as a wave of darkness intrudes their skin, turning them impure, perhaps wild.
Lapvona has paupers becoming princes, severe environmental disruptions adding to the owe of the common folk, and the old lady acting as a witch and healer, who serves in the role of a fairy godmother, albeit with a modern touch.
Cohen’s book confidently deals with the comedy of the Jewish family.
