Between The Lines
Manjula Padmnabhan’s play Harvest (first published in 1996) that won the first Onassis prize for the best new international play in 1997, is an exploration of the ways humans are commodified in biomedical and capitalist discourse. Pooja Sancheti offers a deep reading of its relevance today.…[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
Manjula Padmanabhan, playwright, comic strip artist, writer and columnist based in Delhi, India and the USA also writes literary and SF/speculative fiction converses with Tarun K. Saint who curates this series for The Beacon. …[Read More]…
Bookshelf
A very timely parable on the need to distinguish between ‘humanitarian’ and the ‘human’, Manjula Padmanabhan’s one act play entertains and provokes.…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
A short fiction by Mridula Garg, rendered into English by Pooja Sancheti that opens the doors to differing perceptions on life-expectations, and nature’s vicissitudes leading up to a denouement that reflects the whimsical nature of male behaviour …[Read More]…
Bookshelf
Geetanjali Shree joins the longlist for this year’s international Man Booker award with her novel Tomb pf Sand translated by Daisy Rockwell in a first for a Hindi –language fiction to be considered for the prestigious award. The Beacon republishes the extract from the translation that appeared last November. Get a glimpse of its unique flavor!…[Read More]…
Bookshelf
This volume of south Asian Science Fiction with its hybrid, genre-bending stories and poems adds a new dimension to the corpus of south Asian literature with their attempt to represent the contemporary moment with all its myriad nuances finds Shweta Khilnani…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Bhawani Prasad Mishra (1913-1985) was one of the finest Hindi poets of the last century. His verses have local color, are earthy, and have pace and jingle. That is what endears him to Yashoda Nandan Singh who translates two of them…[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
This session features Sami Ahmad Khan, writer and SF critic/scholar from Delhi, India who teaches a course on this genre in conversation with Tarun K.Saint who curates this series for The Beacon. …[Read More]…
That’s Life!!!
South Asian SF Dialogues series, curated by Tarun K. Saint for The Beacon has Vandana Singh, physicist and writer of speculative fiction engaged in a conversation on the importance of speculative fiction in re-imagining our world with alternative futures…[Read More]…
Bookshelf
The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction (2019), a first-of-its-kind compilation offers a fascinating display of South Asian writing. In the Introduction, Tarun K. Saint takes us on a journey over its rich past and the exciting future of this genre..…[Read More]…
Literary Trails
A story that works at two levels: the surface one, where Intizar Husain records man’s priority for commerce and at the deeper level of an unspoken bond with Nature that is wordless; memory speaks/suffices. …[Read More]…
Literary Trails
Pash comes to life as the poet talking back to the demons of our imes in these fresh translations from his work by Alok Bhalla…[Read More]…
Bookshelf
An excerpt from her forthcoming novel Ret Samadhi offers a glimpse of what to expect from Geetanjali Shree; translated as Tomb of Sand by Daisy Rockwell……[Read More]…
Bookshelf
Sami Ahmad Khanoffers a critical reading of Indian Science Fiction (ISF) based on mythology (M), ideology (I) and technology (T) that shape it and its fictional re-imaginings as an alternative to a male Eurocentric perspective of the genre. …[Read More]…
Bookshelf
Indira Goswami author, peace activist and passionate critic of women- disenfranchisement is much read in her native Assam but needs to be read and re-read widely in this world of toxic divisiveness says Jahnavi Gogoi reviewing the edited volume on the author-activist by Namrata Pathak and Dibyajyoti Sarma. …[Read More]…