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Welcome to this edition of The Hindu on Books Newsletter. Native American writer Tommy Orange, whose book Wandering Stars has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024, has been picked as the 11th writer to contribute to the Future Library project, according to The Guardian. The project was launched in 2014 in Oslo, with the premise that every year for a century a manuscript would be commissioned, and kept under lock and key till 2114, when the texts would be printed to be read. Manuscripts from Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell, Elif Shafak, Han Kang, Karl Ove Knausgaard and others are already in; Orange joins the group. He was announced as the latest contributor during an Edinburgh international book festival event, The Guardian reported. The Scottish artist behind the project, Katie Paterson, said: “His writing is marked by a deep exploration of identity, belonging, and intergenerational trauma, particularly within the context of Indigenous experiences,” and that Orange’s work is “destined to resonate with readers of the 22nd century.” Orange said “being involved in the Future Library means I still have hope that we will have a world to live in with books in it in a hundred years, or 90 I guess, and I think I need to keep that hope alive.” Orange hails from the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma, and his debut novel, There There, was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer prize.
In reviews we read Vikram Seth’s translation of the Hanuman Chalisa, an essay on the deafening silence in India about the plight of Gaza, Mishal Husain’s biography of her family scattered across the troubled past of the Indian subcontinent and more. We also talk to journalist Neha Dixit about her new book on the many lives of Syeda X, the story of an unknown Indian.
Books of the week
Broadcaster and journalist Mishal Husain’s new book, Broken Threads (HarperCollins) pieces together the multiple histories of her family tracing the tree from the northwest frontier in Multan to the southeast of the subcontinent in Visakhapatnam with links to other cities like Lahore, Lucknow, and to places in England. In her review, Geeta Doctor writes that the even tenor of the narrative distinguishes it from previous accounts of the horrors of people’s lives being torn apart. From miniature portraits of her grandparents and her parents, she also talks of Empire which brought disparate families together, Partition, and the tragic way it happened, and of the religious divides which became a strand of her inheritance. “In weaving together these disparate voices from the past, Husain’s broken threads hint at our collective loss, at what might been an inheritance of hope for all mankind,” says Doctor.
Tulsidas’s Hanuman Chalisa is one of the best-known poems in the world, and millions of people can recite it by heart and chant it daily, declares Vikram Seth (A Suitable Boy, The Golden Gate, Beastly Tales) in his Introduction to his English translation, published by Speaking Tiger. It encapsulates a whole culture in fewer than ninety lines, he writes. In his review Harish Trivedi says Seth walks the tightrope between aligning himself with this iconic Hindu text and repudiating its misuse at the same time. Though the Chalisa is a sacrosanct poem with not much elbow room for manoeuvre, Trivedi points out that the standout quality of Seth’s version is that it is eminently readable on its own, and it goes with a swing. “It is a Chalisa-like poem in its total effect, which is a virtuoso feat that only Seth of all our English-language writers could have pulled off.”
Spotlight
In her new book, The Many Lives of Syeda X (Juggernaut), journalist Neha Dixit chronicles the lives of home-based female workers while focussing on Syeda, a Muslim woman, who makes everything from namkeen to photo frames to door hangings to cycle brake wires to plastic toy guns, wedding cards, rakhis and faux leather balls, even while a changing India upturns her life routinely. The book is a richly detailed account of the lives of those who have been forgotten in the New India story, says Kunal Purohit. Syeda’s account tells us how communalism and casteism, and not economic gains, have trickled down, and powerfully demonstrates the systemic neglect of people who live on the margins. In an interview, Dixit says such stories “are everywhere around us, but not in the media because the media has structurally stopped talking about the urban poor in the country.” This invisibilisation of the urban poor, who keep everything running, stunned Dixit and will shock readers too.
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- The DMK Years (Penguin/Viking) by R. Kannan is a biography of the party 75 years after it was formed on September 17, 1949 by C.N. Annadurai. In his book, Kannan explores the trajectory of the party and its future direction.
- Sandipto Dasgupta’s Legalizing the Revolution (Cambridge University Press) traces the contentious transition from popular anticolonial movements to the demands of order in postcolonial governance. It explains how major institutions – parliament, judiciary, rights, property – were formed by that foundational tension, and offers ways to understand the crisis of that order, especially in India.
- Godzilla and the Songbird (Speaking Tiger) by Manzu Islam is a story about divisions of religion, caste and ethnicity set in the tumultuous period of India’s independence. The book follows the life of an orphan who flees with is grandparents to then East Pakistan and goes on to become a journalist.
- A celebration of the spirit of womanhood amid the constant fight against patriarchy, Shabina K. Rafiq’s The Menstrual Coupe, translated by Priya K. Nair, is a bold and perceptive book that gives women the power to create their own realities.
Published - August 13, 2024 12:24 pm IST