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Welcome to this edition of The Hindu on Books Newsletter.
After British newspaper Daily Telegraph published a report this month that hundreds of words and phrases had been removed from new editions of Roald Dahl’s books, there was a storm of protest from readers and writers across the world. Salman Rushdie said, “Roald Dahl is no angel but this is absurd censorship”, and organisations like PEN America protested too. Last Friday, publisher Penguin Random House backtracked and said it would publish unexpurgated versions of Dahl’s novels, alongside new editions. The publisher said 17 of Dahl’s books, including his most-loved book Matilda, the story about the eponymous little reader, would be published as ‘The Roald Dahl Classic Collection’ to enable readers “to choose which version of Dahl’s stories they prefer.” In the revised editions, words and phrases relating to weight, mental health, gender and race have been deleted or changed. For example, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), Augustus Gloop is simply “enormous”, not “enormously fat”; in Witches, an “old hag” has become an “old crow”; in Fantastic Mr Fox, the word “black” has been removed from a description of the “murderous, brutal-looking” tractors. While Dahl is a controversial writer – he often made anti-Semitic remarks – and his books often have a cruel streak, critics pointed out that literature is not just about making children comfortable about the world around them.
They said that “revisions to suit 21st century sensibilities risks preventing readers from confronting the world as it is.” When Penguin announced it was backing down, PEN America chief executive Suzanne Nossel tweeted: “I applaud Penguin for hearing out critics, taking the time to rethink this, and coming to the right place.” A report in AP quoted Francesca Dow, managing director of Penguin Random House Children’s, that the publisher had “listened to the debate which has reaffirmed the extraordinary power of Roald Dahl’s books and the very real questions around how stories from another era can be kept relevant for each new generation.”
The Hindu’s two-day Lit for Life held over the weekend saw a host of writers, journalists, artists and speakers discussing pressing issues of the day as well as reflect on literature, art and sport and their impact on life. The sessions included a talk by motivational coach Gaur Gopal Das, International Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree in conversation with Anita Ratnam , journalist P. Sainath discussed his latest book on unsung heroes of the freedom movement, and historian William Dalrymple gave an illustrated lecture on the East India Company based on his quartet of books. Joining the session virtually, speedster Wasim Akram talked about his candid memoir Sultan and batted for resumption of India-Pakistan matches; while actors Deepti Naval and Vidya Balan spoke about their journey to the film world and early influences, and writers Navtej Sarna and Amandeep Sandhu explained why Punjab is a fractured land.
In reviews this week, we read a book on the Indian Parliament, about a writer’s search for Princess Amrit Kaur of Mandi, the second book in the semi-autobiographical trilogy by Dalit writer Manoranjan Byapari and more. We also interview Man Booker-winning author Marlon James.
Books of the week
Ronojoy Sen’s House of the People (Cambridge University Press) is a ‘biography’ of the Lok Sabha and it depicts, in rich detail, the transformation that this body has gone through in the last 17 Lok Sabhas. In his review, Valerian Rodrigues, says the author sets himself the task of exploring two questions: Is Indian Parliament an effective representative body? How has Parliament changed through Indian democracy? He taps numerous sources as data-base to this study like proceedings of the Constituent Assembly and that of the Lok Sabha, reports of Committees and Commissions, court judgments, manuals of parliamentary procedure, writings and correspondence of concerned political leaders, interviews, live observations of the proceedings of the House, newspaper reports, archival resources, accounts of specialised bodies such as PRS Legislative Research and Association of Democratic Reforms as also rich historical, archival and comparative literature. A wealth of information laces the chapters but, says Rodrigues, glossing over two issues is particularly irking in the study: the changing relation between the legislature and the executive, and the larger issue of representation in a deeply plural and socially unequal society.
Review of House of the People — Parliament and the Making of Indian Democracy: An unkept promise
The second part of rickshaw puller-turned-politician Manoranjan Byapari’s trilogy, The Nemesis (eka), takes readers into the late 1960s and early 1970s when the rumblings of liberation grew louder in East Pakistan and refugees flocked to India, seeking asylum in West Bengal. The Naxalite movement too was gaining momentum; and the CPI(M) having split from the Communist Party, was caught in a power struggle between its factions. In this backdrop, Jibon, now 20-odd years old, lives in poverty, and Byapari traces his journey of survival, driven by hunger and pain. In his review, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar writes that what drew him to Byapari’s works is his honesty and the way he writes about the poor, the working class, and caste. “Jibon’s story is akin to Byapari’s autobiography Interrogating my Chandal Life, but that does not in any way take away from the charm of either story. Jibon’s story is told engagingly and is masterfully translated by V. Ramaswamy.”
In Search of Amrit Kaur: An Indian Princess in Wartime Paris (Penguin) by Livia Manera Sambuy was inspired by a photograph. As she dropped in to see an exhibition of maharanis and maharajas in Mumbai, Sambuy was drawn to a full-length photograph of a beautiful slender young woman “whose grace in that setting shone like a ray of light.” She was her royal highness, Maharani Amrit Kaur of Mandi, the daughter of Maharaja Jagatjit Singh Bahadur of Kapurthala. Compared to the other royals, she wore little jewellery. The last part of the write-up accompanying her picture said that she had been arrested by the Gestapo in occupied Paris for having sold her jewellery to help Jews escape from the city. She was imprisoned for a few months and died soon after. Did she really help the Jews? That’s what Sambuy wants to find out but though she pieces together Amrit Kaur’s story by unearthing a wide array of people she seems to have known, there is not enough of the princess in the book, and as the reviewer Sushila Ravindranath says, “That’s a pity as the princess seems to have led an interesting life.”
Review of In Search of Amrit Kaur — An Indian Princess in Wartime Paris: The elusive Rani of Mandi
Spotlight
In 2015, Jamaican writer Marlon James won the Man Booker Prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings, a fictional account of an attempt to assassinate reggae singer Bob Marley. Soon after, he began writing the Dark Star trilogy. The second instalment, Moon Watch, Spider King came out last year. In a conversation with Radhika Santhanam on the sidelines of the Jaipur Literary Festival, James spoke about fantasy writing, violence and why a lot of men write poorly about women characters. “A lot of writers don’t read women,” he said. “When we fail to portray people accurately, it’s a failure of both empathy and observation,” he said, echoing James Miley’s observation about Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness – instead of reflecting, embodying or just observing black people, all Conrad did was to project his fears and desires upon them and react.
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- India’s Blind Spot: Understanding and Managing our Cities (Harper) by Devashish Dhar gives fresh insight on India’s urbanisation phenomenon, offering policy solutions and innovations to tackle complex issues that plague urban spaces.
- Ravi Sawhney, an ex-IAS officer, writes how he tackled challenges, including the Khalistan movement in Punjab, and recalls his experience during his UN stints in Living a Life (Tulika Books).
- In Nadeem Zaman’s The Inheritors (Hachette India), as U.S.-returned Nisar Chowdhury tries to come to terms with a new Dhaka and its shiny set, he must not forget that reality is always just a block away.
- Sameer Nagarajan’s The Parijat Tree and Other Stories (Vishwakarma Publications) holds a mirror to society from the 1970s to present day India, with stories that bear witness to life and its twists and turns.
Published - February 28, 2023 03:28 pm IST
