Reading & Writing Lounge

9/11 was a stupendous moment in world history, more specifically, American history, and reams have been written about it. In India, Gujrat was on the boil in 2002 with a train fire and the subsequent massacre of human beings across the state. Little ink has spilled over the blood that flowed down the nations’ conscience. [...]

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In a subtle scene at the beginning of the novel, Kiran Desai describes Sai’s tryst with her grandfather’s house and its surrounding environs thus: “… the smoke mingled with the mist that was gathering speed, sweeping in thicker and thicker, obscuring things in parts ….When she looked back, the house was gone; when she climbed [...]

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In an interview published in Outlook in 2002, Amitav Ghosh had this to say about his fiction: “My fiction has always been about communities coming unmade or remaking themselves” (Writing through Turmoil. Sheela Reddy, Outlook, New Delhi, India, Aug. 19, 2002).
The Hungry Tide is about one such community who live on the peripheries of the [...]

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