Hunt has done an enormous service to Kashmir by preserving the representations, which often swing like a pendulum between a heavenly abode and a place ravaged by strife. By the time the seething summer of 2010 thawed, 118 people had lost their lives across the valley. Years later, the telling number would become an index…
The book does not tell us anything a common Kashmiri doesnโt know and it doesnโt tell it in a captivating way that might grab a reader from start to finish. Set in the seething summer of 2008 when streets exploded with rage over the controversial Amarnath land deal in Kashmir, scribe Shakoor Ratherโs debut novel…
Hanna Alkafโs The Girl and the Ghost is an unapologetic Malaysian story with memorable characters, thought-provoking concepts, flawless writing and intertwining of culture. When an old witch dies, her pelesitโa dark spirit or ghost (the Malay word hantu is used interchangeably for both), usually commanded by a woman, that can transform into a grasshopperโis passed…
In the social media driven literary stardom, Mushtaq ul Haq Ahmad Sikandar remains a mild man-of-letters from mountains. His unassuming pile of paperwork might be speaking for his decadal toil as another prodigious penman from the valley, but his activism equally makes him the face of seminars and conferences. In a candid chat with Mountain…
As gateways to knowledge and culture, libraries play a fundamental role in society. But barring a few token book houses devoid of reading culture, Kashmir has nothing substantial to offer to readers. When Salik Pervaiz, a Ph.D scholar from Central University, visited the SPS Library last year, he found himself in a cold and confused…
As people often wake up to the news of a new teenโs โdebut novelโ release in town, the valleyโs literary scene only becomes poorer with the addition of the hastily-written, poorly-edited and badly-treated manuscripts. Self-publishing words in the name of aspiring authorship is only creating a rat race among young boys and girls in the…
Munnu is a deeply personal tale of the loss of innocence of a young boy, echoing the loss of peace and paradise in a valley that was once called heaven on earth. Munnu is a beautifully drawn graphic novel that illuminates the conflicted land of Kashmir, through a young boyโs childhood. Those who already relished…
Confused as the โhouse of comradesโ where endless discussions on Marx and Lenin during the Cold War era would spread intellectual airs in Srinagar, a buzzing hangout lost its relevance and place thirty years ago. Even as the coffee-makers have multiplied since then, that classic coffee has stayed a sentimental sip for many. When a…
As a literary maverick, Agha Shahid Ali is quite legendary for voicing his homeland blues through poetry, but his prose on TS Eliot makes a different case for the poet, perhaps for the first time after his demise, 19 years ago, on December 8, 2001. Years before he would pen down Rizwanโa poetic Kashmiri boy…
Stephen Dobyns, writing in the New York Times Book Review, said, โno American poet writes better than Louise Glรผck, perhaps none can lead us so deeply into our nature.โย I cannot love what I canโt conceive, and you disclose virtually nothing… Part I Louise Glรผck is one of Americaโs most honoured contemporary poets. In 2020,…