A formidable take on the depredations carried out by the Company William Dalrymple has written about almost every phase, and every facet, of the British experience in India, from the early swashbuckling, colorful years to grim disasters in the grip of the foreigner, such as the uprising of 1857 and the colonial wars in Afghanistan. […]
Read More… from A review of William Dalrymple’s ‘The Anarchy’
MY KABUL STORY Original Author: Nasreen Sattar On a work trip to Kabul in 2008 I was meeting the only friend I had who lived in the city. As I waited at the hotel entrance to be picked up, an enormous dark grey SUV looking like a battle tank hove slowly into view. The door […]
Concluding Part Acts of Faith: Javed Akhtar, Shazia Omar, Tabish Khair and Mudar Patherya with Mir Afsar Ali I have always been fascinated by the person and work of the great poet Javed Akhtar and so I am delighted to have a chance to hear his views from up close (and little do I know […]
Read More… from The Kolkata Literary Meet 2017- Concluding Part
The Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet was held from 25-29 January 2017 at the Victoria Memorial Hall. There were two spectacular venues, one under a shamiana erected on the east side and the other within the quadrangle on the western side. As always at literary festivals there were too many events scheduled for anyone to […]
When the gracious young lady who is helping to organize the Hay Festival assigned this book to me to review, she said breezily, “It’ll be perfect for you because you’re so into cricket!” Having come to the end of this marvellous, sprawling, picaresque novel I can see how in one sense this observation was right […]
William Dalrymple was one of the – nay, perhaps the biggest name at the Hay Dhaka. His latest book is Return of a King – the subject of which this talk with Salahdin Imam centered on. SI: I must say that reading your last book Return of a King about the First Afghan War of […]
Read More… from William Dalrymple: “I knew at that point I had my book”