There seemed a certainty in degradation: T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom In Asia Minor or in Alexandria, in the second century of our faith (when Basilides was announcing that the cosmos was a rash and malevolent improvisation engineered by defective angels), Nils Runeberg might have directed, with a singular intellectual passion, one of the… Read More Three Versions of Judas: Jorge Luis Borges
First posted October 24, 2011 According to Murakami, “1Q84” is just an amplification of one of his most popular short stories, which (in its English version) is five pages long. “Basically, it’s the same,” he told me. “A boy meets a girl. They have separated and are looking for each other. It’s a simple story. I… Read More Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning
First posted November 27, 2014 NB: Here’s the greatest (my humble opinion) short story of the 20th century. Not that I’ve read many. DS From Simon Ley’s translation of The Analects of Confucius; Introduction: Lu Xun (who is rightly considered as the greatest writer of modern China; he died in 1936, and – by the… Read More The True Story of Ah-Q – By Lu Xun
The Three Questions, by Leo Tolstoy It once occurred to a certain king that if he always knew the right time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what was the most important thing to do, he would… Read More Leo Tolstoy: The Three Questions (1885) / Lu Xun: Waiting for a Genius (1924)
NB: Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was one of the greatest writers of our times. He wrote during a tumultuous historical period. Deutsches Requiem, posted below, a short story written in 1946, is an imaginary testament of a condemned Nazi war criminal, Otto Dietrich zur Linde. Before getting to the story, I post two paragraphs he wrote in 1944,… Read More Jorge Luis Borges – Deutsches Requiem: a short story (1946)
Mr Swaminathan died suddenly, as he was walking back to his flat from the Veg dining hall after dinner. He was ahead of me on the path, and I saw him slow down. His gait changed from a fast stride to a slower, hunched walk. His left arm went limp. He lost his footing and… Read More Sindya Bhanoo: Malliga Homes
After the truth-shower 