May I just say that I absolutely adore such books? Books that one can dip into and emerge with information shared simply. No fussy narratives. No jargon. No back and forth in timelines. Just a story well told. A story told around an object but in good old-fashioned style with a beginning, middle and end. No clever turn of phrase. A lovely combination of historical facts with modern relevance and application. It is a style first made famous by Neil MacGregor’s A History of the World in 100 Objects. It is an easy way of retelling stories about the significant moments in history. It is a dangerous trap too for there is a tendency to over simplify and scrub out of the narratives any nuances that may prove to be uncomfortable irritants. But that is not rhe case with Tim Harford’s essays based on his popular podcasts. His selection of very unlikely collection of topics includes the postage stamp, canned food, auctions, fund-raising appeals, Santa Claus, the blockchain, stock options, RFID, movable-type printing press, menstrual pads, pornography, QWERTY, vulcanisation, dwarf wheat, gyroscope, spreadsheets and chess algorithms. These read like short stories except that they are all based in facts anre absolutely rivetting!
Writer, comic artist and illustrator Alice Oseman won her first publishing contract at the age of 17. Since then she has written three young adult novels and converted her popular web comic series, Heartstopper, into a four-book deal with Hachette Children’s Group. The first three volumes of the graphic novels have been published — Volume One, Volume Two, and Volume Three.
Heartstopper is a lovey-dovey story about two high school teenagers who discover that they are in love. Charlie and Nick are eighteen months apart in age. Charlie came out to his family and friends in Grade 9 and faced the horrific consequences of being bullied in school. Nick is the tough, popular, typical footballer-kind of schoolboy, who is in Grade 11. The three volumes are about Nick coming to terms with his love for Charlie. Nick is extremely hesitant and confused as he cannot undertand his attraction for the same sex particularly when he is also attracted to girls. Slowly Nick realises he is bisexual but his love for Charlie is for now firm.
The series move gently. At times it seems far too much time is spent in understanding and coming-to-terms with first love. But the awkwardness and anxiety riddled questions about whether the boys are making the right choices are very well presented. They are from a youngster’s perspective. It is difficult to describe but when adolescents are in love or think they are in love, it is a time-consuming preoccupation for them, usually at the cost of everything else — as Nick discovers when he fails to complete his maths homework,. His excuse? He had been up till late at night texting Charlie!
Heartstopper will fit very well in a YA LGBTQ+ list or section of a library except it is hard to imagine that many school librarians will permit these graphic novels to sit in the general section of their library. While YA LGBTQ+ lists are more and more well-defined with every passing year, their acceptance amongst the reading public will take time. The readers exist in the target audience of adolescents but the gatekeepers are still the adults. While novels of these lists are proliferating, particularly with Scholastic, graphic novels may be more challenging to accept for their explicit illustrations. Heartstopper is filled with innumerable scenes of kissing, hugging, cuddles and stolen moments between Nick and Charlie that may not go down too well with many adults who firmly believe that texts exploring sexuality are not necessarily to be introduced to imressionable minds. Having said that there are many, many reasons as to why these books must be shared, talked about and kept in classroom and institutional libraries. These are conversation starters. More importantly, while LGBTQ+ movements around the world continue gain in strength, younger generations continue to experience the confusion and anxiety that their sexual orientation may cause to them at first. It creates mental anguish that is not easy to share and discuss even with one’s closest family members as unfortunately acceptance of gay love continues to be taboo in many families. This is where books like Heartstopper prove to be useful. It is easy to read in solitude and come across questions that are constantly playing out in one’s mind. There are advantages of reading books as it helps in recognising and relating to scenarios outlines in the stories. LGBTQ+ activists may dismiss these books as being far too simplistic in their approach but the fact is that there are many youngsters who are worried and need to know. They may not be absolutely familiar with sophisticated arguments of the LGBTQ+ movement. It is important to start with the basics and slowly guide adolescents to a level of understanding and comfort that their anxiety about their sexual orientation is misplaced. As regards social acceptance, there are challenges but these too can be addressed slowly and steadily.
Heartstopper may not be to everyone’s liking but it is worth reading and discussing.
United we are unstoppable: 60 inspiring young people saving our world — in their own words is a collection of essays, compiled and edited by Akshat Rathi. Rathi is a London-based journalist for Bloomberg News. These testimonies are brief and clearly spell out the young activist’s mission. Some start with the particular incident that transformed them to start a personal campaign to do their bit towards saving the planet, others on what worries and propels them to start a movement and how it dovetails together beautifully with similar campaigns run by equally enthusiastic and committed individuals scattered around the globe. The essays are arranged according to the continents the young activists reside in. Illustrated b/w maps acting as separators accompanied by key points of climate crisis in that geograohical area are a fantastic snapshot introduction to the problems being faced by the locals. Organising the essays within each section on the youth’s local contribution interspersed with ways in which the readers can also assist is a good way to understand, navigate and understand on how to make relevant changes in our lives The book slips into that space of a cross between a primer and narrative nonfiction but it makes easier to appreciate environmental activism and perhaps even be motivated to be agents of change ourselves It is only collective will that can help save Earth.
As Rathi says in his introduction, “These young people don’t just bring new energy to the climate fight; they bring new perspectives, fresh tactics and unwavering resolution. They don’t just understand that everything in the world is connected; they also know how to bridge the divides that have been forming. They know that tackling climate change requires cutting emissions, but that getting there will require facing up to and rooting out deeper injustices perpetuated in society. The youth climate movement has sprung from the grass roots, brought millions into the fold and changed the global conversation.”
Stephen King is a writer who has been extremely popular for decades. He churns out books with immense regularity. What is equally phenomenal is his capacity to read. Pictures of his library at home that are available on the internet are fabulous. Any profiles or essays of him that are published always highlight the discipline with which he writes every day. His son wrote a lovely essay about his father in The New Yorker where he mentions this fact too. Stephen King’s part-memoir, part-handbook on the craft of writing called “On Writing” is stupendous. He writes straight from the heart. It is one of the best books on the craft of writing. His fiction is uneven but in recent years it has been going from strength to strength. If It Bleeds is superb. It consists of short stories and a novella. The writing is controlled when it is used to build suspense. The details packed in every sentence are fabulous. There is a mix of “historical details” that are taken from recent past but are no longer visible in modern living. It exists in the living memory of older generations but not necessarily would be familiar to millennials. It is this gap in one’s experince and knowledge that Stephen King exploits to tell these marvellous tales. There is something special about the tenor of his writing in this volume that is worth reading for the power of his storytelling and for it being a masterclass in the art of writing.
Nina Schick’s “Deep Fakes and the Infocalypse” is an extraordinary book for it details the manner in which AI is being to simulate humans, especially celebrities, and spread misinformation. It is also used to slander reputations. Manipulation of social media by people who are able to use AI to their “advantage” is a horrific thought with widespread implications. It is precisely this that Nina Schick documents. Surprisingly though technological advancements know no geopolitical barriers and nor do major social media companies seem to respect any political borders, the book’s initial chapters dissect the influence of social media across known geographies. It is an interesting aspect that gets highlighted by this very fact though not always explicitly stated. Digital technology firms are fast becoming powers unto themselves and jostling for space with nation states. It is a new world with these grey areas that need new rules of governance so as to ensure that the individuals and firms manipulating AI to create synthetic media can be regulated before they create any further damage in the real world. Shredding people’s reputations is only one aspect. Using AI in connivance with unscrupulous political strategists can even determine the future of democracies. It is a real danger that needs to be safeguarded against as exemplified by the Estonia and Russia incident shared in the book.
This is a real eye-opener of a book. Worth reading!
Physicist Paolo Giordano’s essay written at the start of the lockdown was shared more than 4 million times and helped shift public opinion in the early stages of the epidemic. This edition translated from Italian into English by Alex Valente is a slim little booklet that outlines simply the different stages of the epidemic.
Paolo Giordano says “Epidemics are mathematical emergencies first and foremost. Because maths isn’t the science of numbers — not really — it’s the science of relations it describes the bonds and the exchanges between different entities, regardless of what these entities might be made of, abstracting them into letters, functions, vectors, points and planes. The contation is an infection of our relations.”
An essay that discusses the different stages of an epidemic, how it affects us all, the newness of the experience creates unexpected reactions but it is important to recognise and imbibe qualities that will help survive an epidemic. Also to understand that it is important to be a little more careful than usual, a little more kinder. It will go a long way in helping us survive this pandemic.
An essay that is essential reading. No surprise that it was shared over 4 million times when it was first published. So many gems of wisdom with a deep analytical understanding of what is the life cycle of this pandemic. Although it is about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, it is oddly a reassuring book to read.
Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s The Upright Revolution is a short story that was originally written in Gikuyu. The author wrote it as a Christmas gift for his daughter. According to him the primary essence of this story is “co-operation”. He wrote it while he was living in Cape Town. The fable tells the story of how “a long time ago humans used to walk on legs and arms, just like all the other four limbed creatures”, but how “their rhythm and seamless coordination made the other parts [of the body] green with envy”, and “they started plotting against the two pairs”.
This fable has been translated into 63 languages, 47 of them African, making it the most translated story in the history of African literature (Seagull AIS, PanMacmillan India, 2019). Some of the African languages it is available in are: ” Amharic, Dholuo, Kamba, Lwisukha (Luhya), Kipsigis, Kinyarwanda, French, Arabic, Luganda, Kiswahili, Afrikaans, Hausa, Meru, Lingala, IsiZulu, Igbo, Ibibio, isiNdebele, XiTsonga, Nandi (Kalenjin), Rukiga, Bamanankan, Lugbara, Lubukusu, Kimaragoli, Giriama, Sheng, Ewe, and Naija Langwej.” ( Alison Flood, “Short story by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o translated into over 30 languages in one publication“, The Guardian, 29 March 2016)
The Seagull Books edition of Upright Revolution is richly illustrated in full colour with graphic artist Sunandini Banerjee’s marvellous digital collages, which open up new vistas of imagination and add unique dimensions to the story, making this volume a veritable collector’s item.
In November 2019, an exhibition showcasing the history of modern Indian art had an entire panel devoted to Sunandini Bannerjee’s incredible digital collages created for this book. It was a fascinating display that had my little daughter mesmerised. So later when she received a copy of the book from the publisher, Naveen Kishore, her joy knew no bounds! To admire and appreciate art framed and hung on the walls of an art gallery and to be able to hold a book made of it is an incredible experience.
Buy this book! It gives one pure joy with the story, the illustrations, the manner in which all the elements come together to create a picture book for young and old alike. Love it!
What’s wrong with you Karthik? by Siddhartha Vaidyanathan is a debut novel that was shortlisted for the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing. It is set in 1993 when young Karthik Subramanian, Grade 7, has been enrolled in Bengaluru or then Bangalore’s St. George’s school. It is a prestigious institution known for its illustrious alumni. They consist of professionals, sportsmen, entrepreneurs etc. It is a hard act to follow. Torn between belonging to a traditional TamBrahm family and the very alien, environment of St. George’s, Karthik works his way through. He ultimately survives. What’s wrong with you Karthik? has a lot of potential that has not been exploited. The flatness of women characters is bothersome but not as much as the ill-crafted male characters. It was a great opportunity to explore different forms of masculinity and it would have been a magnificent canvas to explore. Instead it seems as a thinly garbed memoir passing off as fiction and thereby not really doing justice to either genre. Karthik Venkatesh points out in his review that “More could perhaps have been done. A tad more attention could have been paid to coming up with a meatier plot, perhaps. A little more attention to trimming the bulges in places.” ( Deccan Herald, 6 Sept 2020)
Is it the same for you? by Neha Singh and illustrated by Priya Sebastian ( Seagull Books) is a large format picture book telling the story of a young girl in Kashmir as she goes through the turbulence of adolescence in her conflict-ridden world. It is an astonishingly powerful book. The story from the title onwards forces the reader to align themselves with the young girl narrator. It forces the reader to understand the horrors of living under conflict-like situation 24×7. The barbed wire detail illustration on the same page when the narrator speaks of the humiliating frisking of one’s person at the police posts that are conducted, sometimes at random, for the sake of safety is a very disturbing design detail. The barbed wire evokes images of the fencing that is seen in large parts of Kashmir, in rural and urban spaces. Most of the barbed wire fences have empty bottles and cans strung on it so as to alert locals in case someone tries to cross the fences under the cover of darkness. To juxtapose this detail with that of the body search bordering on sexual harassment of the helpless girl who as a local in the face of authority can do little except be mute. This is a powerful moment in the story as it exemplifies not only her state but at a broader level it is emblematic of the challenges faced by other citizens of Kashmir. Yet, given these trying circumstances, the girl-narrator tries to seek hope.
The illustrations accompanying the story are fantastic! It is extraordinary what can be done with different tones of brown and black. Is it the same for you? is a powerful book at many levels but definitely because it asks the readers the haunting question whether they share similar experiences as the protagonist. A question that is not easily answered and instead leaves much room for introspection. Even though it is illustrated like a picture book usually created for little children, this is more like a book that develops the principles of a picture book of showing a complicated reality to a new reader. A child coming into the world has to be introduced to the world and its various elements. Similarly the world needs to reckon with the difficult circumstances under which Kashmiris live and perhaps do something about bringing some positive changes.
The Plague Upon Usis Shabir Ahmad Mir’s debut novel ( Hachette India) set in Kashmir and is also about living constantly under conflict. It was published on the first anniversary of the revoking of Article 370 that gave the state of Kashmir a special status in India. The book is told in four tales each focusing on the lives of four main characters – Obaid, Jozy, Rabia and Muzzafar. It has all the classic details of torture, army abductions, wronged youth running away to join militants, rape scenes, festering anger, the noise of chatter, the conversations and the simplistic way of linking informers and security forces does not sit easy. This novel capitulates to all the popular impressions of what constitutes Kashmir. It seems like commercial fiction dressed up as literary fiction and put through production in haste to mark one year lockdown of the state.
The writer has potential. There are parts in it that can be lifted out of the ordinary but there is no gravitas. So many missed opportunities of detailing the ordinary folks who become victims in the crossfire of security forces and militants; the extortion rackets, the wrongful imprisonment of young men, the informer network, the impact on women, the families that are torn apart etc. It also lacks descriptions of Kashmir. The beauty and the devastation. It is so focussed on the conversations that really lead nowhere.
In this day and age when there is ready access to war literature, testimonies, information in real time on social media, documentaries and live television, etc. Literary works such as The Plague Upon Us that are positioned as a retelling of Oedipus Rex could do with much more layering. To invoke Classical Literature, then it must be used correctly. Not flippantly. Talking about militancy and the troubles of Kashmir does not make it a Greek tragedy. There is justifiably a lot of raw rage on display. A rage that burns within the writer. While rage is good, it is raw energy that could easily have been used to some creative good. It is also impossible to tell the difference between the characters. Their voices are flat. There is no rhythm in the text. Isn’t the idea of literary fiction to focus on the events, use them and present them in a little more than journalistic writing?
Both the books reviewed here are stories from Kashmir, detailing the horror that the civilians experience daily. But it is the minimalist picture book with its powerful stories and use of few words that has a greater impact than the novel.
30 September is celebrated worldwide as International Translation Day. On 24 May 2017, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 71/288 on the role of language professionals in connecting nations and fostering peace, understanding and development, and declared 30 September as International Translation Day.
30 September celebrates the feast of St. Jerome, the Bible translator, who is considered the patron saint of translators.
St. Jerome was a priest from North-eastern Italy, who is known mostly for his endeavor of translating most of the Bible into Latin from the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. He also translated parts of the Hebrew Gospel into Greek. He was of Illyrian ancestry and his native tongue was the Illyrian dialect. He learned Latin in school and was fluent in Greek and Hebrew, which he picked up from his studies and travels. Jerome died near Bethlehem on 30 September 420.
It is interesting to note that on the Internet, 30 September is celebrated with great gusto. Translators, publishers, writers, readers, booksellers etc promote translations enthusiastically. It becomes a fantastic excuse for world literature to be made visible. Many threads pop up on social media that are worth preserving and referencing for the future. Take for instance, Meru Gokhale, Publisher, Penguin Random House India’s tweets on 30 Sept 2020.
This is a journey to discover and rediscover some iconic works of literature on #InternationalTranslationDay. We will explore some of the most magnificent translated works from around the Indian subcontinent, lovingly published by @Penguinindia.
In all this exuberance of sharing and posting images of translated works in a predominantly secular world, the key connection with the Bible is usually forgotten. Ironical that the secular calendar requires a festival to be celebrated and borrows a date from the Christian calendar. Nevertheless it is worth reading about the various translations of the Bible that were made available particularly after Gutenberg’s printing press made it technologically “easier” to provide multiple copies of the text rather than await a handwritten copy.
In All Things Made New: Writings on the Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of History of the Church at Oxford University, there are a couple of chapters on the translations of the Bible. A neat division is made between the various translations of the Bible available before and after the authorised King James Version (1611).
Here are some relevant extracts from the chapter “The Bible before King James” ( pp. 167 – 174) that give a sense of how many translations of the text existed in circulation.
In the fifteenth centry the official Church in England scored a notable success in destroying the uniquely English dissenting movement known as Lollardy. One of the results of this was that the Church banished the Bible in English; access to the Lollard Bible translation was in theory confined to those who could be trusted to read it without ill consequence — a handful of approved scholarsand gentry. After that, England’s lack of provisions for vernacular Bibles stood in stark contrast to their presence in the rest of Western Europe, which was quickly expanding, despite the disaproval of individual prelates, notably Pope Leo X. Between 1466 and 1522 there were twenty-two editions of the Bible in High an Low German; the Bible appeared in Italian in 1471, Dutch in 1477, Spanish in 1478, Czech around the same time and Catalan in 1491. In England, there simply remained the Vulgate, though thanks to printing that was readily available. One hundred and fifty-six complete Latin editions of the Bible had been published across Europe by 1520… .
The biblical scholarship of Desiderius Erasmus represented a dramatic break with any previous biblical tradition in England: when he translated the New Testament afresh into Latin and published it in 1516, he went back to the original Greek.
The next significant translation of the Bible was by William Tyndale, who is considered to be the creator of the first and greatest Tudor translation of the Bible. His is the ancestor of all Bibles in the English language, especially the version of 1611… By the time of Tyndale’s martyrdom in 1536, perhaps 16,000 copies of his translation had passed into England, a country of no more than two and a half million people with, at that stage, a very poorly developed market for books.
In 1535, King Henry VIII himself, never predictable in matters religious, achieved a first at the same time by commissioning the first Bible printed in the British Isles — not in English, but a Latin text, with selected edited highlights from the Vulgate Old Testament and the whole of the New Testament. … This was followed by the Coverdale Bible, the only one to be available in English. This was followed by a former associate of Tyndale called John Rogers, although his work went under the pseudonum of Thomas Matthew. After the Matthew Bible, Coverdale produced yet another version of his completed text that acquired the nickname of the Great Bible. Given that the preface was provided in 1541 by the archbishop, it is often called Cranmer’s Bible. Subsequently, other versions of the Bible were published — the Geneva Bible ( 1560 and 1576 with its first English printing it became a firm favourite with the reading public) and the Bishops’ Bible (1568). These were soon followed by the King James Bible ( 1611).
Diarmaid MacCulloch speculates that perhaps the 1611 vesion had such a lasting effect because of the quality of its translation.
There were so many translators on King James’s committees that the effect was not cacophony but uniformity: one translator read out his effort at revision of his allotted secion to his fellows, and they all joined in criticism and helpful suggesion to smooth out idiosyncrasies … . ( p.179)
An interesting observation on the art of translation by a scholar of a text that has withstood the test of time!
