Reading Amitava on 18 Feb 2010 12:27 pm
Basharat Peer’s Curfewed Night
Here’s a link to Basharat Peer’s appearance on the Diane Rehm show. Please listen to the interview but also the questions at the end. I thought Peer was very deft, very sharp in his responses. I was a little taken aback by the fact that the Indian callers were all vicious nationalists. One even accused the author of hypocrisy, saying that since Peer studied in India he should be grateful to the country rather than complaining about injustice. Would these people have said the same to Gandhi and Nehru who were educated in England but led a revolution against it?
Read about the book here. Also check this out.
UPDATE: Pankaj Mishra has this to say about the book on the NYR blog.
on 02 Mar 2010 at 2:09 am # gaddeswarup
Wonderful review. I did not understand your earlier comments on authenticity, but this review makes a lot of sense to me. I will read your novel when I get hold of a copy but I do not know Hindi and usually do not read novels about India in English and so may not appreciste it well.
on 02 Mar 2010 at 7:28 am # gaddeswarup
Sorry; in the wrong thread. It is meant to be about lapata’s essay.
on 04 Mar 2010 at 1:28 pm # notrelevantnow
Perhaps you should reserve some indignation for the utterly irresponsible statement in Sadhanand Dhume’s review of your book (published in Outlook)! Dhume believes that as long as artists have freedom of expression, States should be free to commit abuses (he did not say so explicitly, but that is what his statement boils down to)
You can of course defend yourself, I am just put off by lazy and irresponsible commentary by so-called experts.