Words for Worlds - Issue 94

Hello everyone, and welcome to another issue of the Words for Worlds newsletter. First up, my apologies for being a full five days late on this: I was in Hong Kong this past week, and while I’ve generally been able to carve out time during travel to write this newsletter, there was just too much going on this week. On the flip side, however, there’s a lot more to write about - so dig in!

A couple of weeks ago, Mario Vargas Llosa passed away. His novels had a formative influence on me, and The Hindu invited me to write an obituary - which I did (read it here). Among other things, it contains an anecdote about how my copy of The Time of the Hero was confiscated by an over-zealous policeman at the Republic Day parade ten years ago.

On BlueSky, a Spanish journalist voiced their surprise at the Llosa tributes coming in from non-Hispanic countries; they noted that Llosa’s hard-right turn in his later life, and some of his political stands, were quite hard to look past. It set me wondering about how literature travels: I was familiar with Llosa’s right-wing views, as I’d come across them in his El Pais op-ed columns as I strove to practice my Spanish; but for me, they did not mar my appreciation of him as a writer, both of anti-authoritarian as well as comically transgressive novels. Yet I suppose that’s because his politics would never directly affect me, making distance easier to come by.

Speaking of Llosa, here is another obituary - a lyrical, poetic one - in Frontline.

In other news, The Sentence is reaching its half-year anniversary of publication (28th April), and it’s been quite the ride so far. And if it’s been on your TBR, then what better time to get it than the half-year anniversary (see here)!

What I’m Reading

And, in contrast to Llosa, a Latin American writer who actually never wavered in his politics. Hunter of Stories is the last published work of the author of Days and Nights of Love and War; and much like that book, it is a memoir constituted by short vignettes, written in a style that is both reflective and urgent. While initially a little patchy, some of the best prose in this book comes towards the end, in some of the longer essays. This one’s to be read slowly, and to be savoured; a beautiful companion volume to Days and Nights.

I really, really wanted to like this book. Everything about it, from its premise to its author, suggested a book that I would really enjoy. I picked it up many times, started it, and then gave up. I made the last of these attempts last week, and then gave up for good: there is something about its dense prose style that made it simply impossible for me to get through. Very much a “it’s not you, it’s me” problem, but if Latin American surrealism is your thing, give it a shot.

Let me start by saying one complimentary thing about this book, and one critical.

Complimentary: this is the best thing I’ve read in a while.

Critical: why the hell has this been published as a limited edition by Rab-Rab Press of Helsinki and is now out of stock, making it absolutely impossible to get one’s hands on? I read a scanned edition of this, and that too only because someone in my life, who knew how much I’d love it, sent me a scanned copy of a hard copy that she’d managed to get. Come on, Jairus, sell India rights to … I dunno … Westland Books or something, so that we can all buy copies.

The title of this book is self-explanatory: Wanting Something Completely Different: 111 Vignettes of Left-Wing Figures, Themes, Films, and Writers. Through a series of taut, tersely-sketched pieces, Banaji explores the lives and times of individuals spanning time, space, craft, and discipline, but all united by “wanting something completely different.” Ruth First rubs shoulders with D.D. Kosambi, Elias Khoury stands alongside C.P. Cavafy, and Rimbaud is in conversation with Ghassan Kanafani.

What stands out in this collection is its sheer range and breadth: this is clearly the culmination of a lifetime of non-instrumental, non-directed reading and watching, a mental Library of Alexandria that has been lovingly put together brick by brick over decades. We are privileged to have it brought to us in a distilled - or condensed - form, but even reading that much filled me with a sense of awe for how much lay beneath the surface, to make that condensed form possible. It’s the kind of incandescent eclecticism that reminds me of Borges at his best.

My favourite section was the section on Film, because while many of the economists, historians, politicians, and writers were familiar to me, the Film section was entirely new, and opened up an entire world of radical film history that I never knew existed (apart from contextualising the little I did, such as The Battle of Algiers).

To anyone even vaguely interested in the internationalist tradition of imagining - and working towards - another, better world, I could not recommend this book highly enough. Apart from everything else, you will feel just a little less alienated, just a little less alone.

What’s Happening at Strange Horizons

Dive into this podcast interview with Clarke and Locus Award-winner, Charlie Jane Anders.

The Indian Scene

One of the signs that a genre is coming of age is the first appearance of serious critical work. So, I was delighted to learn about the publication of Emma Dawson Varughese’s Post-Millennial Indian Speculative Fiction in English, a copy of which arrived last week. Emma is someone I’ve corresponded with occasionally over the years (I was quite flattered to learn that she teaches The Wall to her students). I’ve just skimmed through the book so far (I plan to give it a detailed read this coming month), and it is both detailed and granular - just the kind of critical analysis that a still-nascent genre needs. I was supposed to speak at the book’s launch in Manipal, which unfortunately didn’t work out - but here’s hoping that we will have more chances to talk about it.

Incidentally, the table of contents has a sub-section dedicated to The Wall, in its cities chapter, which I am both eager - and petrified - to read.

Also arriving this week was the latest offering from Indian SF - and, in particular, the tradition of Bengali SF, with Soham Guha’s Fractal Dreams. I was privileged to be invited to blurb this book, and my views are adequately summed up there. Get yourselves a copy!

Finally, Amal Singh’s Audible series, His Majesty’s Tiger, is now available in Hindi.

Recommendations Corner

I’ve been slowly leafing my way through Hiromi Kawakami’s Under the Eye of the Big Bird. I’ve previously written about Kawakami in this newsletter: I adored The Third Love, a speculative fiction novel in the veneer of a time-traveling love story. Under the Eye of the Big Bird is more explicitly SF, with themes of extinction and ecology dominating, but underlying it is the same gossamer-like sensitivity that made The Third Love such a special read.

Incidentally, Under the Eye of the Big Bird is on the International Booker Prize shortlist for this year. It was reviewed in Strange Horizons by our very own critic, Akankshya Abismruta (see here).