Comments on: Dispatches from Kriti: What to Read

By: Wanderer

Wanderer — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:41:45 +0000

Is this all in English..or are any of these writings in an actual Indian language?

By: Ashi

Ashi — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 05:47:09 +0000

Sugi – I didn’t put together the Sepia Mutiny connection with you.

Reg the poetry that Bapsi Sidwa read, I belive it was Ghalib (I have some cryptic notes that I scrawled).

By: sakshi

sakshi — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:07:58 +0000

"Sakshi, any sense of how good the translation of Chowrungee is?"

I read the hindi translation. I don't remember feeling cheated, though it was more than a decade ago, so I don't remember much. Translations to hindi from other Indian languages are usually good. English is a whole other matter, with some exceptions. There is a publishing house called Katha that does a good job of translations to english. I read their edition of some works of the Tamil writer Ambai, and the translation was excellent. Penguin did a few translations too, eg, Sarat's Srikanta and Gangopadhyay's Those Days.

By: Rakesh Surampudi

Rakesh Surampudi — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:29:12 +0000

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a great collection. Daniyal was nice enough to do a short podcast for us of an excerpt from Nawabdin Electrician here. You can also check out a Youtube bit on the page. For those interested in contributing to short story writing in Pakistan, you may find http://www.lifestooshort.pk interesting.

By: ankur

ankur — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:28:30 +0000

Nice meeting you as well Sugi.

By: Minal Hajratwala

Minal Hajratwala — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:31:57 +0000

Hi Sugi, nice post. I restrained myself at the buying table and came away with two books I’m looking forward to reading: Romesh Gunesekera’s futuristic Heaven’s Edge, and Shilpa Agarwal’s Haunting Bombay. Was great to see you and everyone.

By: V.V. Ganeshananthan

V.V. Ganeshananthan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:38:36 +0000

Interesting. I’m also planning to check out Delhi Noir and the Mueenuddin. Sakshi, any sense of how good the translation of Chowrungee is? Do any of you read a lot in translation?

By: sakshi

sakshi — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:40:52 +0000

Shankar’s Chowrungee is really popular in hindi as well: most people who read hindi would have read it. Before Chowrungee, Shankar wrote another novel with the same protagonist, called Kato Ajanare (kitne anjaane in hindi) which I believe was made into a movie by Ritwik Ghatak.

By: Amitava Kumar

Amitava Kumar — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:52:04 +0000

Thanks for the post, Sugi. You know, I’d have happily recommended your book as something that I enjoyed reading. I found Love Marriage lyrical and moving. I think folks like Amardeep have been right to point out, on this site and elsewhere, that Rushdie’s work is too rich to be reduced to any one narrow statement about it. Just the other day, I was looking at The Ground Beneath Her Feet; it’s not a book I liked very much, and its form is a bit shapeless for me; however, I was struck, once again, how sharp his writing was on the subject of photography, for instance. He’s a polyglot, and a stylist of the first rank. The point of the panel that you’ve blogged about was to furnish a brief reading list. You’ve made that clear in your post. I’m looking forward to checking out this summer several new books by desi writers: Mridula Koshy’s If It Is Sweet, Hirsh Sawhney’s edited collection Delhi Noir, Chandrahas Choudhury’s Arzee the Dwarf, and, because I had enjoyed very much his stories in the New Yorker, Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. Thanks for reading this.

By: V.V. Ganeshananthan

V.V. Ganeshananthan — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:39:40 +0000

Also, hi, Ram! Thanks for coming to the reading. And nice to meet you and hear you read, Ankur (are you that Ankur?)