Sanjay Sipahimalani

1 week ago | hindustantimes.com | Sanjay Sipahimalani

Had Mario Vargas Llosa stopped writing in the late 1970s, he would still have been acclaimed not just as one of the premier authors of the Latin American Boom, but as one of the greatest from any country. His novels like The Time of the Hero (1963), Conversation in the Cathedral (1969), and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977) upended conventions with their treatment of themes and use of techniques such as multiple perspectives, streams of consciousness, and blending dialogue and narration.

1 week ago | scroll.in | Sanjay Sipahimalani

It’s ironic that, a hundred years after its publication, The Great Gatsby has become a cultural touchstone for reasons that F Scott Fitzgerald might not have entirely agreed with. Initially, however, most reviewers weren’t impressed. “F Scott Fitzgerald’s Latest a Dud”, proclaimed the New York World in 1925.

1 week ago | thehindu.com | Sanjay Sipahimalani

Many novelists have explored the interplay between the performing arts and life to illuminate their themes. A recent example that comes to mind is Irish author Anne Enright’s 2020 novel Actress, which is set against the world of theatre and film and delves into a fraught mother-daughter relationship. Annie Zaidi’s The Comeback uses the same world to explore ideas of friendship and self-realisation. The narrator of Zaidi’s novel is an actor who has changed his name from Jaun Kazim to John K.

2 weeks ago | esquireindia.co.in | Sanjay Sipahimalani

Women writers have "a narrow view of the world," VS Naipaul once remarked. "I read a piece of writing, and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me.”We beg to differ. Some of the best writing by women provides “a full and authentic report of human experience,” as Ian Watt said about the genre of the novel.

1 month ago | hindustantimes.com | Sanjay Sipahimalani

Everything is burning, the Buddha told his disciples in what is now known as the Fire Sermon. Our senses, thoughts and consciousness are ablaze with the fires of delusion. The Bible, too, uses the metaphor of refining fires for the flames that test us. Such ideas may well have resonated with Pico Iyer during and after a devastating wildfire in July 1990 when his house in Santa Barbara, California, was reduced to ashes and debris.