In Sanskrit plays, paradise is always lost, but the attempt to regain it never ends

Why would anyone read Sanskrit literature today? Writer Shashi Deshpande explores how we read these ancient plays now.

Shashi Deshpande

· Aug 12, 2023 · 08:30 am

‘Animal Farm’ has been translated into Shona: Why a group of Zimbabwean writers undertook the task

A dozen writers contributed to the translation of ‘Chimurenga Chemhuka’ (Animal Revolution) over five years.

Tinashe Mushakavanhu, The Conversation

· Jun 18, 2023 · 05:30 pm

Why Thomas Pynchon’s ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’, now 50 years old, is the ‘Iliad’ of our times

The book’s deepest desire to sing of the “multitudes who are passed over by God and History” has rightly accorded it a place among Dante, Milton and Homer.

Julian Murphet, The Conversation

· Mar 12, 2023 · 05:30 pm

Explainer: Why Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ is one of the greatest scholarly books ever written

In his seminal 1978 bookSaid explores the ways Western experts, or ‘Orientalists’, have come to understand and represent the East.

Cyma Hibri, The Conversation

· Feb 18, 2023 · 05:30 pm

‘Everyone who read her was shocked into awareness’: Mini Krishnan, Bama’s first publisher in English

‘Bama’s Karukku, particularly in Lakshmi Holmstrom’s English, drilled a hole in the wall of both religious hypocrisy and caste consciousness.’

Mini Krishnan

· Feb 18, 2023 · 09:00 am

What makes Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy so meme-worthy?

A new study delves deep into the psyche of Generation Z to understand why the beloved character resonates so well with its members.

Tom Kirk

· Feb 05, 2023 · 03:30 pm

How De Quincy’s ‘Confessions’ elevated the (opium) addict to a cultural figure for the first time

The user seemingly rebels against the quotidian. And for the artist-addict, drugs are a muse.

Jamie Q Roberts, The Conversation

· Feb 04, 2023 · 05:30 pm

The irony of far-right Spaniards appropriating Don Quixote as a nationalist crusader

Miguel de Cervantes's novel ‘Don Quixote’ was a parody and a critique of Spanish imperialism.

Roberto Suazo, The Conversation

· Jan 11, 2023 · 05:30 pm

Hannah Arendt’s ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’ and the problem of terrifying moral complacency

The book that gave us the term ‘the banality of evil’.

Peter Christoff, The Conversation

· Nov 29, 2022 · 05:30 pm

‘Lord of The Rings’: A guide to the expanded world of Middle-earth in JRR Tolkein’s other books

There is a whole universe in several books that expand what we know outside of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’.

Helen Fulton, The Conversation

· Sep 19, 2022 · 05:30 pm

‘The Stepford Wives’: Why Ira Levin’s feminist horror novel is still relevant 50 years later

‘Suburban living did turn women into robots.’

Michelle Arrow, The Conversation

· Jul 26, 2022 · 05:30 pm

‘Persuasion’: Why Jane Austen’s most understated novel, soon to be on Netflix, is worth (re)reading

‘Persuasion’ strikes a contemplative note as Austen explores the emotional depths of her gentle heroine, Anne Elliot.

Thalluri Divya Aslesha

· Jul 02, 2022 · 05:30 pm