Bibliofile

Poet’s New Package

While introducing Sudhir Kakar’s new book Young Tagore, a psycho-biography of the great writer, Prof Harish Trivedi said Kakar is born wrong and trained wrong to write this book—he is not a Bengali, and psychoanalysis is a profession that lays the subject bare, which many people may not like being done to Tagore. The somewhat controversial portion of the book is Tagore’s intimate relationship with Kadambari, the bride of his elder brot­her, who was friend, philosopher and muse when Tagore was growing up. We will see how Bengalis take to the book when it launches at the Calcutta Literary Festival soon.

Mallory And Friends

Deborah Baker, who is married to Amitav Ghosh, is writing a book on the mad scramble and cut-throat competition in 1930s Europe to be the first to conquer Mount Everest. It’s a fascinating account of how the British and the Swiss, among other Eur­opean countries, made it a matter of national pride to be on top of the world first. Baker’s last book was The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism, on the life of Mar­garet Marcus, an American who converted to Islam, became Maryam Jam­eelah, went to Lahore and turned a vot­ary of Islam to the western audiences.

Enter The Entries 

Writer, editor and critic Antara Dev Sen will chair the jury panel for the $50,000 DSC prize for literature. Trans­lator and teacher Arshia Sattar, the head of Oxford University Press in Pakistan, chief organiser of Lahore Lit-fest Ameena Saiyid, British journalist Rosie Boycott and American bookseller Paul Yamazaki are the other members. They are now reading the 65 entries for the prize, which is all the more attractive at the current rupee-dollar rate.