Amruta Patil
I am reading Nick Sousanis’ PhD dissertation-as-a-comic Unflattening . It debunks the primacy of word over image in Western culture and suggests that the two are equal partners in meaning-making. The book I read last was J.M. Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year . I was rereading it, but it took my breath away yet again with the way it straddles polarities and takes loving liberty with form. Next I’d like to read Nina Sabnani’s Kaavad Tradition of Rajasthan .
Amruta Patil is a writer and painter. She is a panellist at The Hindu Lit for Life 2017.
Vannadasan
I am reading S. Senthil Kumar’s novel Kalakandam . He is a new author whose writing in the beginning had traces of S. Ramakrishnan’s style. He has written good short stories. I think Kalakandam has failed to get the attention it deserves. I am waiting to read S. Ramakrishnan’s Idakkai , a novel that begins in the last days of Aurangzeb and the fall of the Mughal empire. It is placed in Central India and there are hardly any Tamil characters.
Vannadasan won the Sahitya Akademi award for 2016 for ‘Oru Siru Isai’.
