Rana Dasgupta


'Footnotes' to Solo Bulgaria, Sofia, photographs, music, chemistry Nov 6 2010, 07:16 GMT For photographs of old Sofia do look at this beautiful collection here. Here is a collection of photographs of Sofia in 1944 Mesut Cemil tanbur, cello, Ottoman, Germany, Constantinople Aug 25 2010, 21:02 GMT Mesut Cemil was the son of Cemil Bey, the greatest tanbur player who ever lived. During his father's lifetime, Mesut Cemil did not presume Solo - a novel novel, history, Bulgaria, Einstein, daydreams, music, chemistry, loss, epiphany crime, violin May 27 2008, 00:24 GMT Solo is ... an affirmation of the vitality of the spirit. - The Wall St Journal (full review) Solo is ... utterly Akhmatova and Shostakovich poetry, music, symphony, Soviet Union, love Oct 24 2007, 01:54 GMT Anna Akhmatova and Shostakovich admired each other from afar, but did not meet. Akhmatova rarely missed a Shostakovich premiere. After the first performance Notes on CNN television, globalization, propaganda, America Jul 19 2007, 08:01 GMT Notes I wrote in a hotel room in front of the eternally enraging CNN. The "staging of the global". The hi-tech bragging of "live report" "Fireflies" by David Albahari Serbia, Yugoslavia, literature, fiction, insects Jul 10 2007, 20:14 GMT I met David Albahari at the Festival of the European Short Story in Zagreb in June this year, where he read his wonderful and A Holiday from History, and Other Real Stories terrorism, reality, fantasy, psychoanalysis, war, trauma, cinema, television, pornography Jan 2 2007, 22:51 GMT *This essay was written to accompany the DVD release of Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, a film by Johan Grimonprez about the history of plane hijacking made for* Art from Central Asia art, aesthetics, nationalism, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Communism, Soviet republics, USSR, artists, modernism Jan 1 2007, 02:12 GMT I enjoyed these two essays from the catalogue to the wonderful Central Asia Pavilion at the last Venice Biennale, curated by Viktor Misiano. The Pioneers of Indian Photography photography, India, colonialism, knowledge, history, Orientalism, Britain, technology Jan 1 2007, 01:06 GMT This historical survey, the text of a British Library catalogue, India: Pioneering Photographers, gives a nice sense of the way that photography entered the Hospitality and the city poverty, cities, art, creativity, charity, welfare Oct 30 2006, 19:44 GMT The beginning of a folktale, which all of us know: A weary traveller arrives in a town at night. He is a stranger from Images of the global city from China art, cinema, cities, Li Wei Jia Zhangke Sep 30 2006, 03:16 GMT The images that capture most interestingly the uncanny, amnesiac intensity of the contemporary global city come usually, for me, from China. Here I'll just The Architecture Of Impregnability architecture, cities, terrorism, capitalism Sep 30 2006, 03:08 GMT At a time when it seems impossible to escape Hollywood's nauseating 9/11 narcissism - Oliver Stone's film is out this weekend here in England, Commentary on Zidane's gesture by Dany Laferrière football, sport, racism, music, France, media, television Jul 13 2006, 10:40 GMT Dany Laferrière is a francophone novelist from Haiti now living between Montreal and Miami. His commentary on the Zidane "header" - the head-butt attack Demolitions in Delhi, and maps of sacred places slums, demolition, resettlement, city, development, modernity Apr 4 2006, 20:41 GMT During the hegemony of Aryan culture across large parts of the Indian subcontinent and south-east Asia, many rulers attempted to re-establish the sacred geography of Creativity and the death camps Robert Desnos, Nazism, holocaust, creativity, storytelling, performance, imagination Feb 13 2006, 11:02 GMT "Susan Griffen tells a story about surrealist poet Robert Desnos, who was imprisoned in the Nazi death camps: One day Desnos and others were taken away Beyond 'confident' India, fiction, literature, writers, writing, nationalism, nation Jan 30 2006, 19:46 GMT A great article by Amit Chaudhuri on the anxious, tedious and mostly idiotic generalisations made about "Indian writing". As he points out, these are Family photographs as art photography, collecting, history, nostalgia Aug 3 2005, 21:15 GMT Two beautiful projects from Kristofer Paetau, who works with found family photographs: The Shadow of a Photographer Double Family "The Storyteller" by Walter Benjamin novel, fairytale, literature, time, death, information, narrative Jul 7 2005, 22:47 GMT I Familiar though his name may be to us, the storyteller in his living immediacy is by no means a present force. He has already become Recent articles about life in US jails prison, medicine, healthcare, poverty, disease, population, violence May 6 2005, 07:14 GMT Two astonishing articles from Harper's (August 2003 and September 2004) about the parallel world of US jails. First one is about the parallel health Paranoia dialogue from Don DeLillo's Underworld paranoia, science, nuclear testing, culture, psychology May 3 2005, 03:47 GMT Don DeLillo is one of the greatest contemporary writers of dialogue. Here's a great one from Underworld in which two characters edge into the Car accidents in fiction and film cars, accidents, death, modernity, technology, fiction, film Apr 16 2005, 07:05 GMT I have often been surprised how ready novelists and filmmakers are to use car accidents as decisive in their plots - usually as a way JG Ballard's Introduction to Crash cars, sex, pornography, accidents, death, fiction, reality Apr 16 2005, 06:01 GMT [JG Ballard wrote this introduction some twenty years after the book. It is a provocative account of the fiction writer's contemporary role.] The marriage of Wonderful short story by J. Robert Lennon story, town, uncanny Apr 14 2005, 22:52 GMT [One of the wonderful "short short stories" by J. Robert Lennon from his collection, 100 Pieces For The Left Hand which has just come out "The Ignorant Schoolmaster" by Jacques Rancière education, equality, inequality, schools, nation, progress, philosophy Apr 11 2005, 07:45 GMT [This is my very rough translation of an address given by Rancière. It should be noted that the word "master" that I have retained Gabriel García Márquez on writing writing, inspiration, magic realism Apr 11 2005, 00:05 GMT [From The Fragrance of Guava: Conversations with Gabriel García Márquez by Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza (London: Faber & Faber, 1988).] I began writing quite by chance, perhaps William Hogarth and copyright William Hogarth, art, intellectual property, copyright, printing, London Apr 2 2005, 03:19 GMT The artist William Hogarth (1697-1764), like a number of the men around him - such as actor David Garrick, and authors Samuel Johnson and Henry Full text of Guardian Online interview about Tokyo Cancelled novel, stories, imagination, magic, global, Rana Dasgupta Mar 29 2005, 03:54 GMT This is the full transcript of an interview with Guardian Online about my novel Tokyo Cancelled. The final article on the Guardian site can "Footnotes" to Tokyo Cancelled novel, stories, imagination, magic, global Feb 20 2005, 04:32 GMT Here are "footnotes" to some of the stories in Tokyo Cancelled. More extensive background to the book, including press reviews, can be seen *Tokyo Cancelled* novel, stories, imagination, magic, global Feb 19 2005, 03:52 GMT "Only the most gifted writers, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jonathan Safron-Foer, can hold the surreal and the real in satisfying equilibrium. This elite A Flowering Tree fairytales, folktales, India, body, transformation, metamorphosis, magic, sexuality, gender Feb 4 2005, 23:13 GMT [This is the title story from the beautiful collection of Kannada folktales by A.K. Ramanujan: A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India.] In a The Real Begins Where the Spectacle Ends (A Manifesto of Sorts) fiction, media, reality, spectacle Feb 2 2005, 21:23 GMT Si la littérature est le silence des significations, c'est en vérité la prison dont tous les occupants veulent s'évader. - Georges Bataille What are the forms of "The Terrazo Jungle" by Malcolm Gladwell architecture, Jewish, Vienna, shopping, modernism Feb 2 2005, 19:14 GMT [from The New Yorker. Another reminder of the astonishing contribution of European Jews to American life. In this case a story of a "Future Primitive" by John Zerzan human, primitive, anthropology, archaeology, progress, spirituality, symbolism, art, culture, science, language, labour Feb 2 2005, 03:17 GMT A fascinating and challenging essay that speculates about a pre-symbolic (yet highly intelligent) human bliss destroyed progressively by the parallel emergence of specialisation and symbolism. Jim Lewis, The King is Dead novel, Jim Lewis Jan 1 2005, 00:34 GMT Just finished reading Jim Lewis' The King is Dead. What fantastic writing. It's really a great novel. It has a few flaws, On Fame celebrity, suicide, literature Dec 27 2004, 01:47 GMT Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the somber renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings. I mean Bombay & The Swinging Sixties jazz, Bombay, Mumbai, 1960s Dec 9 2004, 22:02 GMT A nostalgic, and impressive, reminiscence about Bombay's former jazz splendour. See original article here. A man called Chris Perry died in Mumbai a few weeks ago. The ethics of meat meat, vegetarianism, farming, environment, ethics Oct 10 2004, 20:09 GMT I found it difficult to defend my meat-eating in any way after reading these articles. Within the broad sweep of human history, it seems, Giving money to beggars Mulla Nasruddin, folktales, wisdom Oct 8 2004, 01:39 GMT As Mulla Nasruddin emerged from the mosque after prayers, a beggar sitting in the street solicited alms. The following conversation ensued: MULLA: Are you extravagant? BEGGAR: Art in the Age of Biopolitics: From Artwork to Art Documentation art, documentary, Benjamin, biopolitics Aug 30 2004, 12:18 GMT from the Catalogue to Documenta 11 (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2002), pp 108-114. In recent decades, it has become increasingly evident that the art world has shifted Colleges embrace homeland security curriculum universities, education, security, terrorism Aug 26 2004, 21:17 GMT Anti-terrorism as a career option for the "brightest and best". See original article here Homeland security has become a hot topic in American culture, and higher Thoughts on death penalty death penalty, capital punishment, crime, criminals Aug 24 2004, 22:30 GMT Some of the discussion about this issue has seemed to imply that there is some kind of absolutely natural progression from rape (or other violent Planet of Slums slums, cities, religion, poverty, inequality Jul 2 2004, 12:48 GMT (Adapted from an essay by Mike Davis, in the March/April issue of New Left Review. Davis is currently writing a book about slums that will The Fine Art of Car Bombings Jun 26 2004, 01:22 GMT Article about the excellent work of Walid Raad/The Atlas Group. WALID RAAD was 15 in 1983 when his family shipped him out of Beirut to Boston, Declaring War on Islam, by Edward Said Israel, Palestine, United States May 24 2004, 03:04 GMT Old article from Said, published in The Progressive, May 1996. At a moment of considerable Anglo-Indian tension in 1926, the British missionary and intellectual Edward Thompson from Slaughterhouse Five war, bombs May 22 2004, 09:52 GMT That well-known passage: Billy Pilgrim padded downstairs on his blue and ivory feet. He went into the kitchen, where the moonlight called his attention to a The Museum in the Age of Mass Media art, museum, media May 5 2004, 21:50 GMT It's true: there is still a large audience that enjoys visiting museums these days. But in general, as an institution the museum is increasingly being Against bad war writing Iraq, war, language Apr 17 2004, 13:30 GMT Sometimes I'm shocked by how someone sees fit to write about people they are supposedly trying to defend. I had to pen some thoughts Banksy graffiti, art Apr 13 2004, 16:20 GMT Truly fantastic site by the famous graffiti artist: www.banksy.co.uk And here are some pictures of his stunts to hang his own parodic works in the great Music and property Bulgaria, state, Communism, music, traditional knowledge Mar 3 2004, 20:24 GMT MUSIC AND PROPERTY (These brief notes are based on Timothy Rice's overview of Bulgarian music, May It Fill Your Soul (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).) INTRODUCTION When Surveillance after "Big Brother" surveillance, Orwell Feb 21 2004, 21:25 GMT The arguments of the media often proceed via the production of victims. That something is wrong is signalled by the fact that there is Encountering the sustaining myths of copyright authorship, property, copyright Feb 3 2004, 10:24 GMT Encountering the sustaining myths of copyright Compiled by Mayur Suresh, Atrayee Mazumdar and Lawrence Liang 1. Encountering the myths of copyright 2. Some familiar tales Giorgio Agamben "We Refugees" refugees, nation state, citizens, rights of man Jan 26 2004, 13:10 GMT Enormously significant reflection by Agamben on the relationship between the decline of the nation state and the future of the concept of "citizen". It *Summary: Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil* by Alain Badiou** ethics, good, evil Aug 25 2003, 20:37 GMT 1. Does Man Exist? According to current usage, the term "ethics" relates to the domain of human rights. A universally recognisable human subject is proposed possessing rights Summary: Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments Adam Smith, economics, freedom Aug 2 2003, 00:26 GMT Adam Smith as historicised in contemporary political and economic debates is seen as the great theorist of free markets and thus the intellectual grandfather of Pianos, torpedos and mobile phones piano, military technology, Hollywood, radio Jun 28 2003, 01:34 GMT Came across this in the Economist recently. It's a fascinating story of how music (specifically, player pianos) provided a technology that was used to The President's DNA Iraq, Saddam Hussein, DNA, war Jun 24 2003, 13:25 GMT In Iraq last week the United States army launched a joint air and ground assault on a convoy of luxury off-road vehicles heading towards the New political thinking in Argentina Argentina, crisis, Marxism Apr 8 2003, 03:08 GMT I've been writing about Argentina in the last few weeks and wanted to share some of the incredible news that is coming out of there Salonika, end C19 modernity Oct 2 2002, 03:23 GMT The century was drawing to a close. Stealthily the West was creeping in, trying to lure the East with her wonders. Almost inaudible Summary: "Globalisation once more" by Deepak Nayyar globalisation, migration, labour, capital Sep 19 2002, 01:45 GMT Globalisation is not new: 1870-1914 was another phase of intense integration of world economy. What can we learn from historical parallel? Striking parallels in the Bertrand Russell on war in the future (1952) war, technology Sep 23 2001, 21:49 GMT From a lecture entitled "Science and war" in "The Impact of Science on Society" (London: Unwin Hyman, 1952). 49 years ago. The right to make The public domain audit public domain Aug 1 2001, 03:18 GMT A proposition to the community of those concerned with the public domain... As you all know, many business magazines and the UN publish rankings of countries