DAWN - Books and Authors; January 13, 2008

January 13, 2008

Welcome to a generous selection of articles from DAWN's Weekly Books & Authors.
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Truth be told RAPE is the most horrific form of torture. Rapists literally invade and attempt to conquer the psychological, physical and sexual terrain of their victims. Rapists, through transforming their victim’s ‘no’ into a ‘yes’, also strive to triumph over the victim’s social territory....		REVIEWS: The glory that was Delhi College DELHI College, established in pre-Mutiny India, apparently with the laudable intention of serving as the meeting ground of the British and Oriental culture, is a field of study that attracts readers with an interest in Delhi’s fascinating history and its intellectual elite....

REVIEWS: An intricate web IT was with trepidation as well as anticipation that I picked up Anjum Hasan’s Lunatic in my head. Trepidation because this is Hasan’s first book, hence there were no preconceived opinions of her as a writer, and anticipation because writings from the subcontinent have always been my passion and the author grew up India....		REVIEWS: Vehicle for change IT’s fairly well-known that the system of education that has evolved in Pakistan over all these years is unmatched in several respects. Firstly, it is composed of contradictory elements. The conceptual elements in the education of Pakistan...

REVIEWS: Glitz and glamour THE musafir khanas, sarais, bhatiyar khanas and the likes had almost vanished in this part of the world to be replaced by the romantic dak bungalows during the Company days. Even the bungalows were taken over by motels and hotels that are rated three stars, four stars, five stars,...		REVIEWS: The inside story LESTER Pearson, prime minister of Canada in the 1960s, wrote in his book Democracy in World Politics that we were moving into ‘an age when different civilisations will have to learn...

REVIEWS: A propos... ‘AN old, mad, blind, despised and dying king…’ Thus wrote a certain poet on King George III of England. Incidentally, we heard at primary school that the early Georges were unpopular, partly due to their bad table manners!...		AUTHOR: Fishing for stories Can you tell us something about your upcoming book? The Geometry of God begins with a child named Amal, who discovers something — I won’t say what — in the Salt Range, while on a fossil dig with her grandfather....

EXCERPT: The Geometry of God: A novel MY mother gets her wish. We’re moving to Lahore. Nana takes me for one last walk in the Margalla Hills, still in his soft leather chappals....		REVIEW: Rewriting history THE history of science in the Islamic world has attracted a lot of interest in recent years. Most traditional textbooks stick to a uniform description: the linear progression of Greek sciences into the European Renaissance with the Islamic civilisation acting as an intermediary....

REVIEW: Inside Africa RENOWNED Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of the Savannah tells the story of three former schoolmates positioned at different levels of the hierarchy of power and who become major figures in a new military regime in the fictional West African land of Kangan,...		COLUMN: The evolving marsiya EVERY year with the arrival of Muharram, newly compiled collections of marsiyas begin pouring in. With a few of such collections before me, I am trying to visualise the journey of the marsiya in Urdu, starting from the Deccani period to our times....