Far From The Madding Crowd

The Bookseller magazine has released its shortlist for the Oddest Titles prize, honouring fringe publishing.

No Space for Further Burials: a novel

By Feryal Ali Gauhar

Women Unlimited - 2007

Paperback

ISBN: 81-88965-31-6

This astonishingly powerful novel unfolds the tragedy of Afghanistan, as told by the captive narrator, in hauntingly beautiful prose. As the characters try to cope with their individual destinies in the asylum’s compound, the terrible madness of war is counterpointed with the poignancy of their lives and the narrator’s own peculiar predicament—the “victor” now a victim, his ambivalence a metaphor for everything Afghanistan symbolizes. In a stunning denouement the author makes clear that there is no winning this war, there is only a ravaged country and those who manage to survive its insanity.

Feryal Ali Gauhar read Political Economy at McGill University. She trained in documentary film production in Europe and at the University of Southern California. Her first novel, The Scent of Wet Earth in August (2002) was based on her film, Tibbi Galli. She teaches film at the National College of Art, Lahore, works as a development communications specialist, and writes for Dawn. She has also been a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund.

The book can be purchased online from Dogears Etc..

Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories:

Beyond the Kings and Brahmanas of ‘Ancient’ India

By Uma Chakravarti

Tulika Books - 2007

Paperback

ISBN: 81-89487-21-3

This volume of essays moves the historiography of ancient India in the service of a history of the present. The cultural onslaught of a brahmanical saffron culture within popular discourse, and the fight against entrenched class and caste interests led by women, dalits and other marginalized groups, frame this battle for ‘ancient’ India. Through an in-depth analysis of myths and original sources, the author provides novel grounds for contesting the foundations of such charged concepts as ‘nation’, ‘civilization’ and ‘womanly honour’. Reading against the grain of canonical sources, she presents a distinctive reading of lesser known Buddhist Pali texts, the Jataka stories, and even contemporary texts like the TV serials Chanakya and Ramayana, to demonstrate the stratifications in early Indian society.

The book will soon be available online at Dogears Etc..

Received this email from S Anand, co-founder of Navayana, a couple of days back

Navayana is going through a challenging and exciting phase. I shall be participating in the London Book Fair (LBF) as part of the competition for the International Young Publisher of the Year (in the second week of April) along with eight other participants from Slovenia, Jordan, Argentina, Hungary etc.

At LBF I shall be showcasing the book “Namdeo Dhasal: Poet of the Underworld, Poems 1972–2006 “, a book that is in press. It shall be Navayana’s first hardback in an offbeat 9×9 inches size. This book should put Namdeo Dhasal in the reckoning for the Nobel for literature. At LBF, I shall get to do a “pitch” for this book (besides pitches for three other titles), and a five-minute excerpt from Namdeo Dhasal will be read.

The other important book hitting the stands soon is another first from Navayana–a book for children titled Turning the Pot, Tilling the Land: Dignity of Labour in our Times by Kancha Ilaiah, and illustrated by adivasi-gond artist Durgabai Vyam.

We wish Mr. Anand all the very best during his trip to London. The books he has mentioned should soon be available on Dogears Etc. .

These days Hotel Rwanda is playing on TV so I thought I’ll mention an equally horrifying book I had read on the same subject a couple of years ago. Philip Gourevitch’s We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda , chronicles the genocide of some 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis, and explains why the Rwandan genocide should not be written off as just another tribal dispute

As if languages themselves haven’t caused enough in Indian states (think the division of states on linguistic basis), the people of Goa are now fighting over which script Konkani should be recognized in. Here’s an interesting blog on the great script divide.