Books
Eco: The Ego Buster
A week before he departed, I Amazonned Umberto Eco’s Prague Cemetery. Was it a mere coincidence or was it a premonition that the author is soon destined for a cemetery? I have never loved Eco as a novelist. I loved his prose, however. His Misreadings is not only a fun to read but it provokes […]
A ‘Bagful’ of Tear-Wiping Humor
WRY HUMOUR. In one word or two, that’s what Anees Salim’s VANITY BAGH is. The tongue-in-cheek humour permeates every sentence and every word of the book. The book is in the form of a narrative or rather monologue by Imran Jabbari, an accused in the 11/11 serial blasts and sentenced for sixteen years in […]
Sharjah Turns New Pages
Conveying somber mood over his non-participation this year, MUHAMMED NOUSHAD remembers the 30th Sharjah International Book Fair and the encounters he had with the people and books during the fair, as the event this year has ended three days ago. In a November midnight in 2011, Ali Ahsan and I landed in Sharjah Airport, […]
Mughals: Perspectives and Prejudices
Mughal history is often taken up in contemporary India, or larger South Asia, to absolve the present of its responsibility for some bitter, hard-to-digest political realities, by taking recourse to a past either glorious or disgraceful. Post Dadri lynching, it was debated all around how a bedridden Babur advised his son Humayun to respect Hindus […]
The Grace of Wistful Laughter
I finished reading The Blind Lady’s Descendants while travelling in a train. I don’t think any other place is fitter to be a spot for reading this book. Trains and railway gave Anees Salim the subtext and context for this charming tale. We hear while our eyes pore over the lines the honking and clatter of a train, […]
Islamic Philosophy: The Legacy of New media Art
Should criticism of art be the exploration of the philosophy of art? If by art we mean making sense of infinite folds in nature through their temporal or at least transient representations and if art, thereby, transcends the limited possibility of its being kitsch, art criticism is by and large the criticism of the […]
Islamic Philosophy: The Legacy of New media Art
Should criticism of art be the exploration of the philosophy of art? If by art we mean making sense of infinite folds in nature through their temporal or at least transient representations and if art, thereby, transcends the limited possibility of its being kitsch, art criticism is by and large the criticism of the philosophy […]
Death of a Provocation
An easy way to mourn the demise of a controversial author is to write a review of her not so controversial book, if her oeuvre is extensive and large and if she is not someone like Taslima Nasrin, a factory of tilts. I am not saying that an author’s controversial work should be left unscathed, […]
Book Review of Living Islam. Muslim Religious Experience in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier
Author: Magnus Marsden United Kingdom Cambridge University Press, New York, United States of America Date Published 2005 First Edition What does it mean to be a Muslim in Pakistan? The question is of much significance given that Islam is the founding basis of the nation. And yet, it is surprisingly under-studied,as it is not an […]
The Prophet for All
Blessed are those small books that you can read at one sitting or, to say in justification of the context of this writing, during a two-hour train commute. Publishers might be scared to read this. If a product, the result of a harrowing spending spree- buying copyrights, commissioning writers, roping in editors, getting the manuscript […]
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.