Monday, October 14, 2013

CLRI Reviews pays tribute to Oscar Hijuelos

CLRI Reviews pays tribute to Oscar Hijuelos, a Cuban-American novelist who died of heart attack yesterday in New York while playing tennis. Oscar won a Pulitzer Prize for his work "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love (1989).
Oscar Jerome Hijuelos (1951-2013)
Photo Source: Wikipedia


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Saturday, October 12, 2013

M Chawla Reviews Bengaluru / Bangalore: In First Person Singular

Meenakshi Chawla Reviews Bengaluru/ Bangalore: In First Person Singular
To begin with, a city is a difficult organism to perceive; then to break it up into discrete segments of culture, history, people and other headings for its sights and smells, its moods and seasons and the luminosity of its sunsets, is a task for the gods. Or perhaps, a photographer with a pain in his heart for his city.

Mahesh Bhat is the photographer with a pain in his heart for his city Bengaluru, or shall we just call it, Bangalore, as we know it better. Bengaluru/ Bangalore: In First Person Singular (photo book) is, from the cover to the last page, a labor of deep love and concern. The very first photograph on the flyleaf inside the cover is that of Basavana Gudi taken in 1995. That picture sums up the book I’m yet to read. The dappled sunlight, the waiting stance of the structure amidst lengthening afternoon shadows and people arrested in mid-stride tell of a Bangalore that is caught in the cross-currents of identities, a city with roots, finding its wings.


Title: Bangalore/Bengaluru: In first person singular
Author: Mahesh Bhat
Publisher: Mahesh Bhat Publishing
Year: 2012
ISBN: 978-81-904535-1-6
Price: Rs 1200 / USD 30

To buy the book, visit flipkart


This photo book delights the visual sense; at the same time, the mind processes the subtle message of the image. And that is how the author conveys the pain in his heart to his readers – not through cart-loads of words on reams of acid-free paper, but through pictures (on art paper) that reflect a city in all its living, and lively, detail.

The author begins with a brief acknowledgement of the catalysts and supporters for this endeavor to narrate the story of Bangalore’s 25-year journey of change. Contemporary thought leaders come first – Nandan Nilekani, Subroto Bagchi. Nudging them (gently) are the artistes who, by the author’s admission, ‘have been amazing’.

The book begins with a full-page photograph of a sunlit field at the edge of a wood with a girl running across while her brother stands by, playing his violin – a wide-open sky looks in interestedly. The caption informs the reader that this field has now been imprisoned by a cigarette factory at Chikkajala.  The next picture, three pages later, belongs to another world - urban squalor of asbestos-capped shanties amidst piles of garbage dwarfed by futuristically designed commercial complexes in the background.  We have seen this picture – in cities that grow breathlessly, and mindlessly.

The author asks “Whose city is it?”

Indeed, who has the right to stake first claim on Bangalore? Its cultural denizens re-imagining concepts of life and living; IT professionals, taxi drivers and businessmen from all parts of the country coming in search of a new life; students; or its oldest residents holding fast to memories of the first urban neighborhoods – whose is Bangalore?

A city is planned on sterile drawing boards to systematic plans and proofs by conscientious engineers, farsighted patrons. Give the city ample time, minimal space… and you will see it grow under the sun and sky - amidst the confusion of livelihoods and living spaces, braving the profusion of vehicles and vagaries of weather, through government inaction, or worse, pot-bellied solutions to civic issues... the city will grow with a life all its own, into a future that belies all predictions.

The harsh midday sun and the struggles it contains give the city-face its character. The author documents Bangalore’s character evocatively. There are so many pictures, and of such diversity – marketplaces, bus stands, and women vegetable sellers glittering in diamond earstuds.  Then there are dargahs, people celebrating Durga Puja, as well as shops being set up for the day’s trade and the new night life in the newly emerged part of the city.

Pages 56 and 57 present a contrast that truly mirrors present-day Bangalore – the left page shows a line of four somber black burqas adorning a shop window, deep undertones of demure womanhood. The right page has a picture of a highlighted bright-red banner shouting, “Happiness Sale Last 4 days left” and a line of four painted-up smiling ragdoll-faces atop the banner. They both thrive – to each, Bangalore is home.

Pictures pack in power – elegantly. The portrait of the descendants of Sir Mirza Ismail, five graceful matriarchs of varying vintage, is a keepsake; old world charm that we lost in our relentless march into bold new futures.

The chapter that leaves behind a lingering fragrance is ‘Bengaluru Karaga’. A ‘dramatic’ festival that began in the 1800s but still has relevance for ‘struggles over urban space’, it encapsulates the essence of the teeming city. It unifies across ‘geographical, religious, linguistic and cultural’ divisions and is perhaps the only time when Hindu deities are allowed to enter the precincts of a dargah, Tawakkal Mastan Dargah.

A city is the sum total of its citizens’ experiences. It is what a rickshaw-puller feels when he sets down his first client at seven in the morning; it is what the student sees as she takes the bus back home; it is the child watching the birds in the school playground. The city shows a different side to each of its citizens, like a million-sided prism. Each side of the prism is true, and each side must keep pace with the other faces in change and growth.

In frame after frame in this well-produced, sturdily-bound, and smartly edited book, the reader sees the million-sided prism that is Bangalore, or Bengaluru…a living, thriving organism suffused with energy and flaws, and radiant hope.

Author’s Bio: Mahesh Bhat is a Bangalore-based photographer and has worked on projects for a number of publications in over 20 countries, all the way from New York Times to Newsweek of Japan.

Reviewer’s Bio: Meenakshi Chawla is a Delhi-based writer and writes book reviews for Contemporary Literary Review India.



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Contemporary Literary Review India
— journal that brings articulate writings for articulate readers.
CLRI prides itself to have a good number of review writers. We have different review writers for books of different genres. Our reviews are gaining recognition among the publishers, journals and academia for fair and high quality reviews. To know more about book reviews, please visit: Book Review Services

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Savant Books Releases Tendai Mwanka's Novel "Keys in the River"

Savant Books Announces the Release of Tendai Mwanka's Novel "Keys in the River"



Keys in the River is a cycle of stories about economically-challenged, politically-torn, and disease-ridden Zimbabwe, told as if the reader were sitting and listening to neighbors and friends talking about life. Some stories are tender, even comic; in others, tragedy and outrage lurk. The stories share a common thread, a noble stance in the struggle to find love, freedom, justice, completeness, and satisfaction.

The author, Tendai Rinos Mwanaka, was born in 1973, in Nyanga, Nyatate, Mapfurira village, in the remote eastern highlands of Zimbabwe. He is the author of "Voices from Exile," a collection of poetry on Zimbabwe's political situation and exile in South Africa (Lapwing Publications, 2010). He has written numerous articles and won several awards. "Logbook Written by a Drifter," and "Voices from Exile" were both short-listed for the Erbecce Press Poetry Prize in 2011 and 2009, respectively. He was nominated for a Pushcart Award twice, once in 2008, and again in 2010, as well as commended for the Dalro Prize in 2008. He has published over 200 short stories, essays, memoirs, poems and visual art productions in over 100 magazines, journals, and anthologies in the following countries: USA, UK, Canada, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Kenya, India, Italy, France, Spain, Cyprus, Australia and New Zealand. He lives and stays in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe.

"In the spirit of self-promotion and with a wink and a playful smile, I recommend to you 'Keys in the River'," says Mwanaka. "Put on some good music, place some tasty food within reach, then let yourself sink into the stories. Let the ideas growl within your consciousness. Challenge all your perceptions about Africa and Zimbabwe until even your new perspective becomes a howling, mangy dog. Now you know modern Africa. I prescribe 'Keys in the River' is the best medication for people suffering from this exhausting, frustrating and high-strung twenty-first-century world."

Source: Originally published on a blog by Savant Books and Publications LLC.



Get Your Book Reviewed by
Contemporary Literary Review India
— journal that brings articulate writings for articulate readers.
CLRI prides itself to have a good number of review writers. We have different review writers for books of different genres. Our reviews are gaining recognition among the publishers, journals and academia for fair and high quality reviews. To know more about book reviews, please visit: Book Review Services

Flaneurs of a Certain Madness: On Yahia Lababidi & Alex Stein's "Artist as Mystic"



Flaneurs of a Certain Madness: On Yahia Lababidi & Alex Stein's "Artist as Mystic" by  Daniel Coffeen

A few weeks ago, I bought my first eBook: Artist as Mystic: Conversations with Yahia Lababidi by Alex Stein.  I have to admit I was hesitant — not to read the book but to buy it as an eBook. In fact, I was so hesitant I tweeted my hesitancy, informing Mr. Lababidi that, while the publication of his eBook was exciting, I would wait for the print version. But our anxieties are revelations. And my protest of the eBook — an aesthetic protest, mind you, not a principled one — revealed my ambivalence, testifying to my curiosity. I protested too much.

And while I am not necessarily converted to the eBook, I could not be happier with my purchase. Waiting for a train, eating lunch, sitting on a bench while my son plays, I draw my phone — a funny name for it, at this point — from its denim sheath,  suggestively slide my thumb, and there is Yahia Lababidi and Alex Stein talking about Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Baudelaire, Kafka, Bataille, some dude named Ekelund‚ and this doesn't even include all the casual asides on Rilke, Poe, Rodin, among others.

This experience, for me, holds all the promise of the digital: sitting at a bus stop, I am ensconced in a silent yet audible conversation, dwelling amidst a teem of words, ideas, moods, possibilities.

Reading Artist as Mystic, this is what pops at first: Lababidi's voracious appetite. He moves through ideas, through words, through ideas with an ease but also with a profound engagement that is nothing less than exhilarating. And it is so gloriously free of the pedantic, arid academic nonsense that normally defines books on such so-called big names (is Ekelund a big name? I'd never heard of him but am thankful for the intro. I was also inspired to buy, and read, Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal. And is there any greater recommendation for a book than it inspired me to seek more?).

Yes, I came through the academy. But one of my main issues with academia was not just how it asked me to write but how it asked me to approach texts (see? I still use the word "text" — which is not necessarily a bad word but it reveals, in no uncertain terms, my academic training). To me, a text — I can't help it! — is a living, breathing, rambunctious thing. I never wanted to treat it as a corpse, something to be exhaustively dissected. It was something I wanted to converse with (liberated from academia, I'm allowed to end my sentence with a preposition).

And, as the title declares, this is exactly what Stein and Lababidi give us: conversations. The focus is not monolithic, as if this was the ultimate tome on writing. No, this book moves as a conversation should — from text to text, idea to idea, moment to moment. It's not always continuous. There are no tidy summaries. This is a book of caesuras and ellipses, flows and meandering. It's not a coincidence that Baudelaire's flaneur shows up. For that is what we witness here: Lababidi and Stein as flaneurs of writing.

Along the way, we get insights — lots of insights —but we get lots of passion, as well. We witness, we feel, Lababidi engage these books. My favorite moment might be when he discusses how he read Kierkegaard (a writer very close to my own heart): "I never could understand Kierkegaard with my eyes open. He was too many, too much, too elusive.... I had understood Kierkegaard all along with my eyes closed, but now I knew the earth of him, around which the many moons revolved."

What I love here is how he engages Kierkegaard, not whether I agree with his reading. Artist as Mystic, if nothing else, is a great model for how readers should approach these hallowed authors: converse with them. Listen but also talk back. It's not a matter of revealing their secrets. It's not a matter of exhausting their oeuvre. It's a matter of understanding, sure, but it's above all a matter of taking, connecting, playing, feeling — in a word, engaging.

This, alas, is what's truly great about this small but potent book: it's all about engagement — with words, with ideas, with life. Lababidi tells us how all these different writers wrestled life as we, in turn, witness Lababidi's own engagement. This is not the work of a scholar in the traditional sense. This is the work of, well, a poet: someone who lives to make new sense of life.

What we're left with is something unique. Stein and Lababidi traverse the lives of these writers but this is, by no means, a biography. They perform exegeses but this book never seeks, never proffers, a certain position with footnotes and citations. No, they are up to something else entirely. They are interested in the will to write. And not just the will to write but the will to write things that are alienating. Look at the names we read: these are not those who write to please, placate, or or even explicate. Stein and Lababidi are interested in those writers who are different, who are a little nasty, who often led odd lives that ended ugly. As they take up this or that writer — Baudelaire, Bataille, Nietzsche — they seek the will that would write such things, that would suffer and delight and ache because they had to.

As Stein and Lababidi make their way through this then that writer, they don't seek to exhaust the canon as if they were experts laying down the final word. No, they move between the authors' lives, words, and the words of others in search of the will that drives such mania, such madness, such brutality, such beauty, such alienation. They seek to grasp, to wrestle, this mad will.

Now, our authors are much gentler than, say, Bataille. But, while gentle, they are not reductive or reassuring. In an almost disconcertingly smooth voice, they give us the fecundity of a certain breed of madness. Combined with its speed, this makes the book a welcome delirium.

Artist as Mystic, while surely not as alienating as its subjects, is an expression of will, not an exposition of knowledge. Sure, these guys know their stuff. But that's not why you should read this book. You should read this book because it's refreshing, beautiful, and inspiring to read a book that so joyfully engages the will to life in all its messiness: that strolls so freely among a certain madness.

Source: Originally published on a blog by Daniel Coffeen.


Get Your Book Reviewed by
Contemporary Literary Review India
— journal that brings articulate writings for articulate readers.
CLRI prides itself to have a good number of review writers. We have different review writers for books of different genres. Our reviews are gaining recognition among the publishers, journals and academia for fair and high quality reviews. To know more about book reviews, please visit: Book Review Services

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Review on Vinay Capila’s The Revolution And Other Stories



"Vinay Capila is a compelling story teller. Vinay lets his stories evolve on their own and never makes the readers feel he is bending the storyline. That is the power of him."
– Khurshid Alam, Editor-in-Chief,
Contemporary Literary Review India

Meenakshi Chawla Reviews Vinay Capila’s The Revolution And Other Stories
Vinay Capila’s The Revolution And Other Stories is for the winter afternoons when the sun is old and mellow, and when the heart is seeking a warm refuge that envelopes, gently. The stories display a ripeness of perspective that comes from accepting the world—with all its flaws and flippancies. The readers can only conjecture that they are – from the author’s life – a full and rich life.
 The first story from which the anthology takes its title ‘The Revolution’ is a titillating read that takes the readers through college-style ‘revolution’, that first flush of idealism and righteousness. The lengthiest story in the collection, it stands its ground until the end – which, incidentally, does not come as a surprise! The author builds up the atmospherics in this one rather well woven story – the university comes alive in one’s mind.

‘One Summer’ is a heart-warming story. It handles two momentous events, first love and a loved one’s death, with the simplicity of life itself. Nevertheless, there is innocence in the interactions between Sunita and Vinod that touches the readers’ heart. Adolescents that they are have not yet learnt the wiles of the world of adults. Where the story falters is in dealing with the memory of that first love. First love is almost always tender, and its memory almost always clutches at the heart in the most unexpected ways, at the most unexpected times. But on second thoughts, the author probably wishes to leave this understated.

‘Behind the Scenes’ is where the author is within his comfort zone; a production has drawn to its close, the cast has silently drifted away and the emptiness of endings enfolds the protagonist. Words and sentiment are doled out with sharp sure jabs, as they would be in a stage production. The author has captured the somber mood without arc lights and cues.

‘Fish and Chips’ lays out the quirky paths wealth takes to reach the people who have little or no need for it. Beneath the word-layers, there also surges a question: what is real – that which the eye sees, or that which the eye misses? So, indeed, which of the two Dr. Slopers is the real deal? Which of them is the real inheritor of the millions of dollar left behind by one of his relatives? The story flows naturally with the writer’s ink with an innate honesty – no clever twists or showy turns.

The usage of Indianism (for example, ‘A year back’) makes the language writer’s own, however sometimes it narrowly escapes slipping down to less refined language. Also, some stories lack clear destination, such as ‘Shepherd on the Mountain’ where the narrative is lost in multiple threads – the shepherd’s side, diary entries and a third perspective too.

The story unfolds largely in the protagonist’s mind and the reader is led through a complex question-answer-wonderment plot. The essence of a poetically-underpinned story is squandered in too much reflection and too many questions.

‘The Battle Within’ might leave a reader puzzled in its wake – does it or does it not deal with schizophrenia? The change in voice leads to a disjuncture in understanding. The narrative tends to lumber in a free-wheeling fashion.

Remarkably the writer, Vinay, escalates his sharp story telling skill with ‘The Idealist’ – a nicely sketched story. Vinay sketches his characters rather expertly: a line here, a flying curve there. It is left to the readers to fill the details into a love story nuanced with life and living.

Here is a collection of stories a dreamer, or a ‘straggler’ in the material world, might pen in his diary – a gracious framing of experiences, ideas and all those mundane days that made the man! The pieces resemble lyrical sunsets – bringing to viewers, and readers, a vague feeling of longing, a soft whispering sadness. The author, Vinay Capila, has been successful in his objective in that the reader’s thoughts linger on a story even after its last line has been read – just as the author’s mind might have lingered after his pen had moved on. He makes the stories his own and they flow on in their own rhythm – ebbing now and rising to a crescendo soon after. In this, his telling is vaguely reminiscent of Guy de Maupassant’s early work. It is a volume that every short story reader must add to his/her collection.

Reviewer: Meenakshi Chawla is a book review writer with Contemporary Literary Review India, and her writings have appeared with many other journals.

Book Title: The Revolution and Other Stories
Author: Vinay Capila
Category: Story Anthology
Publisher: Angus and Graphers Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
ISBN: 978-93-80254-05-0
Year Published: 2012
Pages: 293.



Get Your Book Reviewed by
Contemporary Literary Review India
— journal that brings articulate writings for articulate readers.
CLRI prides itself to have a good number of review writers. We have different review writers for books of different genres. Our reviews are gaining recognition among the publishers, journals and academia for fair and high quality reviews. To know more about book reviews, please visit: Book Review Services

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Contemporary Literary Review India Nimba Issue 1 print edition

Contemporary Literary Review India is available in various media to suit the readers from all walks of life. However a writer is happiest if his/her material appears in the print format. The print edition of CLRI has been brought out with this aim. Moreover as this edition involves huge expenses, selection criteria to the print edition differ from other media. 

To understand better which types of materials are selected for the print edition, buy the print copy of Contemporary Literary Review India. Contemporary Literary Review India print edition has ISSN 2250-3366.

Have a look at the preview of Contemporary Literary Review India.

CLRI Nimba Issue 1 January 2012 Released as POD

CLRI is Released on Pothi
Contemporary Literary Review India (CLRI) aims to promote writers and their writings. In its efforts Contemporary Literary Review India Nimba Issue is released through Pothi—a Pint-on-Demand system—also.

CLRI Payment

Contemporary Literary Review: India (CLRI) is looking for Ads Executive

Contemporary Literary Review: India (CLRI) is looking for Ads Executive

Contemporary Literary Review: India (CLRI) is looking for Ads Executive for its various versions. CLRI is a literary journal which brings out Kindle edition and is soon to launch its print version. For more details, visit: http://www.contemporaryliteraryreview-clri.com/

Position: Ads Executive

Location: Anywhere from India.

Work Responsibility: Collecting ads and subscription for its various versions.

Salary: Incentive based.

Qualification: Good to speak, write and work in English language. Degree not a condition.

Experience: Should already be earning as this position is not salary based, it is incentive based. So think before you jump!

Facility: We will provide basic training and system about how to work.

Contact: Send your resume at: writersdeskinfo(at)yahoo(.)co(.)in