Somak Ghoshal

Mintlounge • 19th November 2020

Your weekend fix: Lounge recommends ‘Essential Items’ by Udayan Mukherjee

In the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, as most of the world went into lockdown mode, essayist Sloane Crosley hurled a couple of hard questions at the writing community in an article for . “But what happens when every writer on the planet starts...

Mintlounge • 19th November 2020

Sunday Lounge | Why Rohinton Mistry's fine balance matters, 25 years on

In 1995, when Rohinton Mistry published his second novel (and third book) , he had been away from India for exactly two decades, living in Toronto, Canada, since he moved there at the age of 23. In the interim, he had held a day job at a bank for 10...

Mintlounge • 19th November 2020

Your weekend fix: Lounge recommends ‘Bhairavi’ by Shivani

To most readers of Hindi, the name of Shivani, the nom de plume of writer Gaura Pant (1923-2003), does not need an introduction. Prolific and popular, she wrote hundreds of articles, essays and stories for a variety of magazines, as well as 40 novels,...

Mintlounge • 21st October 2020

What Shabir Ahmad Mir’s fiction tells us about Kashmir

Shabir Ahmad Mir finished editing his first novel for publication through the hard days of the covid-19 lockdown. For the writer, this period was not entirely unfamiliar. Born in Gudoora village in Kashmir’s Pulwama district, he studied at a local...

Mintlounge • 21st October 2020

‘Ravi Shankar was obsessed with asserting the dignity and integrity of Indian classical music’

No name signals Indian classical music to the world more than Ravi Shankar’s (1920-2012). The sitar maestro not only took Hindustani music to the international arena but also influenced a glittering array of celebrity artists—from George Harrison of...

Mint Lounge • 19th October 2020

In search of the real Ma Anand Sheela

The 2018 Netflix documentary is ostensibly focused on the exploits of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the Indian spiritual guru known as Osho, and his followers, who established a commune in Oregon, US, in 1982. But the most magnetic presence in it is Sheela...

mint • 2nd October 2020

Understanding MK Gandhi’s ‘love’ for his ‘spiritual wife’

If you run a cursory internet search for M.K. Gandhi’s relationship with Sarala Devi Chaudhurani, you are likely to come across articles with headlines referring to a love affair between them, even salaciously pointing to the Mahatma’s lust for her....

Mint • 6th September 2020

On the trail of the global rainbow revolution

On 6 September 2018, as the Supreme Court read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, India reconfigured what Mark Gevisser calls in his new book “the Pink Line". As he explains early on in The Pink Line: Journeys Across The World’s Queer...

Livemint • 31st August 2020

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot limps back to life—barely—in this fan fiction

In 2014, when the British writer Sophie Hannah took on the task of resurrecting the iconic fictional Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot nearly four decades after he last made his literary appearance, she made it abundantly clear that she would not be...

Livemint • 29th August 2020

Is Indian publishing becoming more queer-friendly?

As ‘Queeristan’, Parmesh Shahani’s book on LGBTQ+ inclusion in workplaces, launches the business list of a leading Indian publishing house, Lounge examines whether India’s mainstream publishing industry is becoming more queer-friendly

Livemint • 3rd August 2020

Sita destroys Ravan in this feminist retelling of the Ramayan

Nabaneeta Dev Sen’s translation of a 16th-century Bengali poem is a precursor to postmodern retellings of Sita’s story

HuffPost India • 30th July 2020

Man Booker Prize Winner George Saunders On His Craft, The Internet, And A Reading List For Donald Trump

Man Booker Prize Winner George Saunders On His Craft, The Internet, And A Reading List For Donald Trump

Livemint • 20th July 2020

What Telugu poet Varavara Rao’s prison diaries tell us about his politics

What Telugu poet Varavara Rao’s prison diaries tell us about his politics First published in an English translation in 2010, ‘Captive Imagination’, a collection of the writer’s dispatches from jail, remains a classic of prison literature

Livemint • 3rd July 2020

How Perumal Murugan found literary stardom with his debut novel ‘Rising Heat’

How Perumal Murugan found literary stardom with his debut novel ‘Rising Heat’ The Tamil writer speaks about caste, rural society, and the making of his first novel, out next week in English for the first time

Livemint • 4th June 2020

Exclusive: A suspected terrorist sets off Megha Majumdar's gripping debut novel

An interview with the New York-based Indian-origin author of 'A Burning'—a searing portrait of religion, radical politics and social injustice in contemporary India—touted to be this year's major literary debut

Livemint • 28th May 2020

The novel that predicted the coronavirus pandemic

The novel that predicted the coronavirus pandemic Pulitzer Prize winner journalist Lawrence Wright’s new thriller is a prophetic account of a viral outbreak

Livemint • 11th April 2020

Sharmistha Mohanty: When poetry becomes prayer

Sharmistha Mohanty’s new collection of poems demands to be read aloud, and with immersion

Livemint • 21st February 2020

‘There’s no excuse to spend years of your life on a book’: Jeet Thayil

‘There’s no excuse to spend years of your life on a book’: Jeet Thayil Writer Jeet Thayil speaks on his new novel ‘Low’, knowing Mumbai inside out, and his arduous journey from poetry to prose

Livemint • 8th February 2020

Deepa Anappara's 'Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line': The lost children of Bhoot Bazaar

Deepa Anappara’s daring debut novel depicts life inside an Indian slum from the point of view of a nine-year-old boy

Livemint • 8th February 2020

The difficult poetry of love and loss

The difficult poetry of love and loss Dharini Bhaskar’s debut novel tells an affecting family saga, shot through with poetic prose