Ranajit Guha, India’s oldest living historian, starts his 100th year with a dazzling legacy

Guha, who retired from teaching in 1988 but didn’t stop writing, is one of the most influential south Asian historians today.

Somak Mukherjee

· May 23, 2022 · 08:30 am

How should Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy be read during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

They cannot expunge the actions of the Russian army in Ukraine. But they’re embedded within the Russian cultural fabric, and how their books are read matters.

Ani Kokobobo, The Conversation

· Apr 08, 2022 · 05:30 pm

Born 200 years ago, what is Fyodor Dostoevsky telling us today through his novels?

November 11 marks Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 200th birth anniversary.

Richard Herrett

· Nov 11, 2021 · 05:30 pm

Foundation: an introduction to five major themes in the work of science fiction writer Isaac Asimov

The new TV series has rekindled interest in one of the ‘big three’ of science fiction.

Mike Ryder, The Conversation

· Sep 29, 2021 · 05:30 pm

Walter Scott at 250: So much more than a great historical novelist

Fortunately for the casual reader, Walter Scott, born in 1771, was more than a novelist. He was also a master of the short story.

Daniel Cook, The Conversation

· Jun 24, 2021 · 05:30 pm

Tagore at 160: ‘People are urged to deeds of frightfulness by the goadings of manufactured panics’

‘The Spirit of Freedom’: A letter from New York to the author’s own countrymen. May 9, 2021 marks Rabindranath Tagore’s 160th birth anniversary.

Rabindranath Tagore

· May 09, 2021 · 12:30 pm

Nawal El Saadawi’s intellectual life reflected eight decades of Arab society and culture

The Egyptian feminist writer and activist (who was also a physician and psychiatrist) died on March 21 at the age of 89.

Amal Amireh, The Conversation

· Apr 06, 2021 · 05:30 pm

How music shaped Virginia Woolf’s writing

Music provided the author with a vocabulary to imagine and describe her creative practice and formal innovations.

Emma Sutton, The Conversation

· Apr 05, 2021 · 05:30 pm

Virginia Woolf died 80 years ago. What does reading her work in the midst of a pandemic bring us?

The author rewrote death and illness back into the national story of post-first world war Britain.

Jess Cotton, The Conversation

· Mar 30, 2021 · 05:30 pm

From Goa to London with Graham Greene: A first-person account of a literary friendship

Maria Aurora Couto writes of her long association with the famous novelist.

Maria Aurora Couto

· Mar 07, 2021 · 08:30 am

How a maligned Virginia Woolf points to the problem of generic introductions to the classics

Things become tricky when misperceptions turn up in affordable paperback series by leading international publishers.

Gayathri Prabhu

· Feb 06, 2021 · 05:30 pm

How Ernest Hemingway dealt with the Spanish flu pandemic: He was not a denier, he was scarred by it

The author dodged the peaks of the 1918-'19 pandemic waves by weeks, sometimes days, in Italy.

Eamonn O'Neill, The Conversation

· Dec 28, 2020 · 05:30 pm