Sudhanva Deshpande

Jan 26, 2024 | thehindu.com | Soma Basu |Charumathi Supraja |Sudhanva Deshpande |Ashish Rajadhyaksha

In brutalising times, literature keeps us sane, said German author, poet and journalist Ronya Othmann, whose acclaimed book The Summers (translated from German Die Summers), published in 2020, is all about the entanglement of migration and how families are torn apart when faced with war and loss. To document the years spent in conflict and exile is important, she said, because when everything is lost, it is important to preserve memories associated with home.

Jan 26, 2024 | thehindu.com | Zubeda Hamid |Soma Basu |Charumathi Supraja |Sudhanva Deshpande

In brutalising times, literature keeps us sane, said German author, poet and journalist Ronya Othmann, whose acclaimed book The Summers (translated from German Die Summers), published in 2020, is all about the entanglement of migration and how families are torn apart when faced with war and loss. To document the years spent in conflict and exile is important, she said, because when everything is lost, it is important to preserve memories associated with home.

Jan 16, 2024 | thehindu.com | Sudhanva Deshpande

To make theatre that was authentic to its cultural milieu and history while also being thoroughly modern, both in content and form — this was Habib Tanvir’s life’s achievement. His theatre was exuberant, festive, celebratory, funny, moving, thoughtful and reflective. It was progressive and secular, and because it was created by a man with a Muslim name, it was reviled and attacked by Hindutva forces. He worked with rural actors to create plays that appealed to audiences far beyond the rural.

Sep 1, 2023 | frontline.thehindu.com | Sudhanva Deshpande |Vaishna Roy

“We have come here to perform, and that’s what we will do. I do not accept that every person in the audience has walked out voluntarily. They’ve been coerced, and I know by whom. But there are some cops here, and some officials. Come, let us perform for them.”This was Habib Tanvir, a few days after he had turned 80, in September 2003. We were in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, and the play was Ponga Pandit (The Duplicitous Brahmin).

Aug 13, 2023 | scroll.in | Sudhanva Deshpande

“For our liberation, we need guns. But without culture, guns are useless. Brothers end up killing brothers,” Zakaria Zubeidi had told me in April 2015. Zubeidi is one of the co-founders of The Freedom Theatre, established in the Jenin Refugee Camp in Palestine’s north West Bank. When I met him, he had voluntarily turned himself in to a Palestine Authority detention centre in response to a threat to his life from the Israeli army. Zubeidi is an icon of the Palestinian resistance.