The fictional events narrated in Mole! an English translation of Otran, a novel by Ashokamitran take place within a period of seven months, nearly all of them in the American Midwest. The narrator, a culturally rooted writer from Chennai, is transplanted amidst a motley group of fellow-writers from distant parts of the world, all of them as dangerously dislocated as him. Deprived of the language that has brought them fulfilment and distinction, these writers struggle to retain their place of ...

The early 1960s, also known as the golden age of Indian cinema. Satyan Kumar, reigning screen god, moves from Mumbai to the Madras film industry. There he meets Gopalan, a middling studio writer. An inexplicable connection forms between the two men across the chasms of class and language. But just as an enduring bond springs up, tragedy intervenes. Gopalan’s son mysteriously dies and his wife’s dementia acquires homicidal overtones. Both men flounder as they try to understand their roles i...

For nearly thirty years from 1940, the Gemini Studios of Madras (Chennai) was the most influential film-producing organisation of India and its founder, the brilliant multi-faceted entrepreneur S.S.Vasan lent substance and quality to the rather fragile and unpredictable movie business.The Gemini emblem of two small boys with bugles was true to Vasan’s slogan for the Studios,‘when the bugles blow, there is a great show,’ Gemini films entertained millions all over India and abroad.Sahitya Akade...

Chandrasekhar, adolescent, vulnerable, confused, is growing up in the momentous period before and after 1947, when Hyderabad is the State of Nizam. This political setting drumbeats through the novel, closely and ironically interwoven with Chandrus life at home, in the city and at college. The Eighteenth Parallel, won the Ilakkia Chintanai Book-of-the-Year Award in 1977, and was selected by the National Book Trust of India for translation into several Indian languages. The novel appears in Eng...

After her epic journey from Ireland to India by bicycle in 1963, Dervla Murphy immersed herself in the life of the sub-continent, working for six months in an orphanage for Tibetan children in Northern India. She fell in love with the 'Tiblets' - the cheerful, uncomplaining, independent and affectionate children of the new Tibet-in-exile - but she also managed to explore India's Tibetan frontier, leaving the reader panting in her wake. Alongside her enchantment, Dervla became a perceptive ...

In Tropical Classical the author of Video Nights in Katmandu and The Lady and the Monk visits a holy city in Ethiopia, where hooded worshippers practice a Christianity that has remained unchanged since the Middle Ages. He follows the bewilderingly complex route of Bombay's dabbawallahs, who each day ferry 100,000 different lunches to 100,000 different workers.Iyer chats with the Dalai Lama and assesses the books of Salman Rushdie and Corm...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the National Book Award–winning author of Just Kids: a “sublime collection of true stories … and wild imaginings that take us to the very heart of who Patti Smith is” (Vanity Fair), told through the cafés and haunts she has worked in around the world. Patti Smith calls this bestselling work “a roadmap to my life.”M Train begins in the tiny Greenwich Village café where Smith goes every morning for black coffee, r...

India for first time visitors. A guide to the cultural quirks of India.

**The iconic masterpiece of India that introduced the world to “a glittering novelist—one with startling imaginative and intellectual resources, a master of perpetual storytelling” (The New Yorker)WINNER OF THE BEST OF THE BOOKERS • SOON TO BE A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIESSelected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time • The fortieth anniversary edition, featuring a new introduction by the author**Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of m...

Bring Monet's paintings and gardens to life using this gorgeously illustrated book that will teach you how to create a Monet lifestyle from your living room to your kitchen to your garden—from the documentarian and author of Monet's Palate Cookbook, with the support of the American steward and all the head gardeners at Giverny.Aileen Bordman has long been influenced by the work of Claude Monet, one of the founders of French Impressionist painting whose esteemed works captu...

Translated by Audie E. Bock."A first rate book and a joy to read.... It's doubtful that a complete understanding of the director's artistry can be obtained without reading this book.... Also indispensable for budding directors are the addenda, in which Kurosawa lays out his beliefs on the primacy of a good script, on scriptwriting as an essential tool for directors, on directing actors, on camera placement, and on the value of steeping oneself in literature, from great novels to de...