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The Writer-Critic and Literary Studies: Mission Statement

The Writer-Critic and Literary Studies: Mission Statement

Despite Socrates’s imputation that the great tragic poets didn’t know what they were up to and why they were up to it, writers and creative practitioners are often deeply self-reflexive

Schedule: 31 March and 1 April 2023

Schedule: 31 March and 1 April 2023

As it’s being presented in partnership with the India International Centre, New Delhi, the Symposium is open to all, and you don’t need to register.

Sach chhuchha hota hai

Sach chhuchha hota hai

Kumar is a novelist, photographer, artist, and, on the evidence of the Hindi poems he has been writing in the last two years, a bilingual poet.

Leaving the Naipaul Myth Alone: On Sanjay Krishnan’s <em>V.S. Naipaul’s Journeys</em>

Leaving the Naipaul Myth Alone: On Sanjay Krishnan’s V.S. Naipaul’s Journeys

V.S. Naipaul was fond of repeating himself. We have heard him speak in his characteristic way, in recordings or at live events: the long pauses and the multiple stabs for emphasis at the same word or phrase.

To the Memory of Pavankumar Jain

To the Memory of Pavankumar Jain

Pavankumar Jain (1947-2013) studied at Bombay University and the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. He wrote in Gujarati and English, and while still a student started the little magazine Tornado (1967-71).

By Way of Introduction: Thoughts on World Literature and Nirmal Verma

By Way of Introduction: Thoughts on World Literature and Nirmal Verma

World literature. It is a weighty little term that has evolved with the times, outgrowing old meanings and acquiring new, contentious ones.

Terminal (1992)

Terminal (1992)

She did not say anything, but he always knew when she had drifted away from him. He shook her by her shoulder. ‘Are you angry?’ She let herself be shaken like a wax doll.

‘I am lost somewhere’: Borges in London

‘I am lost somewhere’: Borges in London

Looking at him from a distance, it was impossible to think that he wasn’t looking at us—wasn’t looking at anyone—that he was walking alone in his darkness.

Symposium 4: Against Storytelling

Against Storytelling: Mission Statement

Against Storytelling: Mission Statement

About a decade ago, I interrupted a talk I was giving to a small group of international writers and academics gathered in Delhi to say, ‘Fuck storytelling.

Lyric Embarrassment: Or, Why I Can’t Tell a Story

Lyric Embarrassment: Or, Why I Can’t Tell a Story

When I first received Amit’s concept note for the symposium with its opening provocation, ‘Fuck storytelling!’ I felt a little pop of relief in my chest, and in the parts of me

UP Against Storytelling, for David Antin

UP Against Storytelling, for David Antin

In the aftermath of popular-vote loser Trump’s election, the search for blame began. On some accounts, the blame laid on postmodernists and poststructuralists who had so undermined

Storytelling and Forgetfulness

Storytelling and Forgetfulness

Years ago, I began to run into the claim that we are all storytellers. Storytelling was evidently a primal communal function for humanity. I was assured that we’ve been telling each other

Fabricating Texts for Theatre from a Tribal village in Bengal

Fabricating Texts for Theatre from a Tribal village in Bengal

Imagine a street, or better still – this one being less than four metres wide – imagine a narrow road made of hard-packed reddish soil stretched over about a kilometre

Journalism and the Triumph of the Story: A Personal ‘Narrative’

Journalism and the Triumph of the Story: A Personal ‘Narrative’

When I started out as a journalist, I had the makings of a very poor one. The pieces I turned in didn’t tell proper stories with a beginning, a middle and an end. And I guess – thinking back – they were light on information

“What Difference Does It make?” For and Against Storytelling via the Novels of Kiran Nagarkar

“What Difference Does It make?” For and Against Storytelling via the Novels of Kiran Nagarkar

Kiran Nagarkar’s 1974 novel Saat Sakkam Trechalis – Seven Sixes are Forty-Three in the English translation – is a modernist collage: fragmentary, dream-like

I Don’t Have Wings: Vinod Kumar Shukla

I Don’t Have Wings: Vinod Kumar Shukla

In one of his poems, the Hindi writer Vinod Kumar Shukla compares the flight of a bird to that of a butterfly

A Story In Memory of John Ashbery

A Story In Memory of John Ashbery

All life Is as a tale told to one in a dream In tones never totally audible Or understandable, and one wakes Wishing to hear more,

Beyond the Tangible

Beyond the Tangible

These images are from the prologue of Anhey Ghorey Da Daan, or Alms For the Blind Horse, a film dealing with the angst, alienation and exploitation of the marginalised castes in Punjab

Magazine: New Writing

Elena Lombardi on <em>Ulysses</em>, at Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford

Elena Lombardi on Ulysses, at Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford

In the second interview in the series, 'Interviews on Site', Elena Lombardi speaks about buying two copies of Ulysses (the second one was bought at Blackwell's) and her Odyssean journey

A Conversation with Charles Bernstein at, and on, the Museum of Modern Art, New York

A Conversation with Charles Bernstein at, and on, the Museum of Modern Art, New York

'Interviews on Site' is a new series of video interviews done for this website. The aim is to record a conversation at a location that is in some way related to the conversation.