{"id":5819,"date":"2009-06-13T14:31:25","date_gmt":"2009-06-13T19:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=5819"},"modified":"2009-06-13T11:55:03","modified_gmt":"2009-06-13T16:55:03","slug":"dispatches_from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/13\/dispatches_from\/","title":{"rendered":"Dispatches from Kriti: What to Read"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here I am in the desilicious town of Chicago, which today is so rainy it’s practically imitating Seattle. I’m here to attend the third Kriti <\/a>festival… a celebration of South Asian authors and writing organized by Mary Anne Mohanraj <\/a>and Desilit<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This morning’s keynote panel, “What’s Not to Like?” featured Romesh Gunesekera<\/a>, Amitava Kumar<\/a>, and Bapsi Sidhwa<\/a>. The three of them read from the work of writers they particularly admire. Romesh Gunesekera read from Chowringhee<\/em>, by Sankar. He began by telling us that he never reviews books… but this one was the exception. Here’s his take on why you should read it.<\/p>\n\n

Hotel Calcutta: A classic Bengali novel, published in Britain for the first time, delights Romesh Gunesekera<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Bapsi Sidhwa read from Sara Suleri Goodyear<\/a>‘s book Meatless Days,<\/em> which, she said, got under your skin. She also read some Urdu poetry in translation, which I think was from this book <\/a>(am I right? anyone?).<\/p>\n\n

Amitava Kumar wouldn’t tell us what he was reading from until he had finished reading, despite Bapsi’s question. We need suspense, he said firmly, and read from The Immortals <\/a>by Amit Chaudhuri<\/a>. There are two South Asian writers one can tell by voice alone, he added: one being Rushdie and the other being Chaudhuri. Kumar said Rushdie’s writing drops periods and punctuation; he has many imitators. Chaudhuri, on the other hand, is a careful user of commas; this is more difficult and so he has no imitators. Kumar noted that Chaudhuri is also a musician.<\/p>\n\n

Perhaps more Kriti updates here… Internet permitting. Happy Saturday, all… more reading recs welcome. I haven’t read these, so I’ve got homework to do!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here I am in the desilicious town of Chicago, which today is so rainy it’s practically imitating Seattle. I’m here to attend the third Kriti festival… a celebration of South Asian authors and writing organized by Mary Anne Mohanraj and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5819"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}