This is the debut short story collection by the author Jhumpa Lahiri. The collection won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.

The book contains nine short stories – all about the stories of Indians who are abroad and caught in between both the cultures. Most of them deal with the human emotions and feelings, a particular incident or personality. I found the stories as heart-touching ones, especially The Third and Final Continent and A Real Durwan.

Author Jhumpa Lahiri has been able to give a perfect sketch of the characters being described, which makes it possible for us to visualize the story. In the book, we come across a couple who play a game of revealing a secret each day during the power failure, Mr. Pirzada whose family is in the riots in Dacca and he has no news of them, another interesting couple – Mr and Mrs. Sen, Boorimaa and so on.

A good pick to spend on a silent and touching reading.

Uma Chakravarthi’s Everyday Lives Everyday Histories : Beyond the Kings and Brahmans of Ancient India is a compilation of 14 essays from the authors considerable work on the history and historiography of early India. Though it brings together articles written by historian-activists over two decades, no element of staleness attaches to the book.

The books concentration on socio-economic subalterns enriches the historical gaze, It seems to carry with it an implicit presumption about so-called superalterns – Did Brahmins or merchants not have everyday lives? The Book does not try adequately to address the question of the interplay of multiple basis of power –
Read more…