In a Saturday session at The Hindu Lit for Life, titled ‘The Cooking of Books’ after the name of Ramachandra Guha’s latest book, the historian and writer spoke to Nirmala Lakshman, chairperson of The Hindu Group Publishing, about the mercurial relationship he shares with his “self-effacing” editor Rukun Advani, the “kind of man you will never see at a literary festival”.
Dr. Guha described the book, his shortest one yet, as an “eccentric, idiosyncratic personal memoir of a relationship of more than 40 years”.
The idea for the book emerged during the pandemic, when Dr. Guha, a man of habit, could not make his regular pilgrimages to historic archives. Confined at home, he instead began leafing through his own private archives and realised that his letters with Mr. Advani formed the bulk of it. Those letters then formed the basis of the book.
Read more: The longest thank you note: Ramachandra Guha on his mercurial relationship with his editor
