By Gregory Freidin Great musicians, it is said, do not choose their calling—music chooses them. Reading and rereading Joseph Frank’s writings after his passing, it seems that the spirit of modernity itself chose him to be its voice among literary critics—in the age when brute force remaking the world was matched and animated by a… Read More A Critic, His Life, His Age: A Tribute to Joseph Frank (1918-2013)
There are some who are in darkness / And the others are in lightAnd you see the ones in brightness / Those in darkness drop from sight.(Bertold Brecht, The Threepenny Opera) People in the West seem naïve to us because they don’t suffer like we do, they have a remedy for every little pimple. We’re… Read More Svetlana Alexievich: Secondhand Time
By Sam Husseini / Substack I doubt it’s a coincidence that Malcolm — born 99 years ago this year and assassinated on Feb. 21, 1965 — was a model for the martyred Palestinian writer Refaat Alareer. Indeed, at a talk in 2012, Alareer would recall his introduction to Malcolm: “I was teaching a course, and there was an amazing… Read More The Prophecies of Malcolm X: Zionism Is a New Kind of Colonialism
NB: Allahabad was my father’s birthplace and hometown; and that of his two sisters. It was the place where they went to school and college. My father’s closest friendships dated back to his childhood and youth in Allahabad. My grandparent’s home was located on 9, Kamala Nehru Road (once City Road); and I have fond… Read More Allahabad that is Prayagraj: The Politics of Erasure
Akhtar Balouch; November 4, 2015 Jogendra Nath Mandal has the distinction of representing the Muslim League as minister in the 1946 pre-partition political setup of India. Later, he presided over the historic session of the Constituent Assembly on 11th August 1947, where Mohammed Ali Jinnah was sworn in as the first Governor-General of Pakistan. Jinnah… Read More Jogendra Nath Mandal: Chosen by Jinnah, banished by Pakistan’s bureaucracy
By Graciela Mochkofsky It may come as no surprise that a country as deeply polarized by its recent history as Chile is also at war over the relevance of its preëminent poet, Pablo Neruda. In December, fifty years after the coup d’état that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power, Chileans rejected an attempt to write a new constitution… Read More Black thread in the brightness: the second death of Pablo Neruda
‘I have written five books, but I feel that they are all one book. A book about the history of a utopia …’ Svetlana Alexievich held her Nobel Lecture on 7 December 2015, at the Swedish Academy, Stockholm. She was introduced by Sara Danius, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy. The lecture was in Russian.… Read More Svetlana Alexievich’s Nobel Lecture (2015)
उड जायेगा हंस अकेलाजग दर्शन का मेला ।।Kumar Gandharva – Ud Jayega Song: Ud jayega hans akela jag darshan ka mela.. Lyrics with English translation Singer And Composer: Pandit Kumar Gandharva (1924- 1992) Dewas (M.P) India LYRICS :-Ud Jayega Huns Akela,Jug Darshan Ka MelaJaise Paat Gire Taruvar Se,Milna Bahut DuhelaNaa Jane Kidhar Girega,Lageya Pawan Ka… Read More उड जायेगा हंस अकेला / जग दर्शन का मेला – Remembering Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhiji has been killed by his own people for whose redemption he lived. This second crucifixion in the history of the world has been enacted on a Friday – the same day Jesus was done to death one thousand nine hundred and fifteen years ago. Father forgive usHindusthan Standard January 31, 1948 Sarojini Naidu’s AIR… Read More Sarojini Naidu’s broadcast February 1, 1948: My Father, Do Not Rest / T. N. Madan: Secret of Gandhi’s Greatness / Gopalkrishna Gandhi: We need to do more than lament the tragedy
NB: D. D. Kosambi (1907-1966) was one of India’s most accomplished intellectuals. Hailing from Goa, he was a polyglot familiar with Konkani, Marathi, Hindi, Sanskrit, Pali, English, French, Italian and German (I may have missed some languages). He was a mathematician, statistician, geneticist, philologist, physicist, numismatist, archaeologist, historian and public intellectual (find a biography here). He… Read More ‘Baba’ – A Personal Tribute to Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi, by A. L. Basham
After the truth-shower 