Zulfikar Ghose

What first provoked my curious attention when I opened João Almino’s novel, Enigmas of Spring, was that its hero... Published 25 Apr, 2021 06:20am

It is nearly 20 years since Agha Shahid Ali, the eminent Kashmiri poet, died aged 52. Rereading his books —... Published 07 Mar, 2021 06:55am

Those of us who grew up during the last years of the British Raj had little choice if we wanted a decent education... Published 17 Jan, 2021 06:55am

He shows Raphael a strangely brilliant piece of shagreen; anyone who possesses the skin and makes a wish will have his wish... Updated 29 Nov, 2020 04:22pm

That sort of rapport between a writer and a bookseller has long vanished as have many of the shops, including the one I knew... Published 11 Oct, 2020 07:01am

Sometimes, reading a chance remark that asserts a surprising claim persuades us to reread a text to see if we’d... Published 23 Aug, 2020 07:15am

In an unpublished essay composed some 10 years ago, titled ‘The Sycorax Syndrome’, English poet Christopher Middleton Published 28 Jun, 2020 06:56am

The eminence claimed for Lampedusa is based on referring to his novel as that by a Sicilian writing about Sicily. Updated 03 May, 2020 12:40pm

Two unpublished poems from the writer… Published 08 Mar, 2020 08:19am

Long before the much-celebrated Latin American boom that is associated with the 1967 publication of One Hundred ... Updated 30 Dec, 2019 02:30pm

Reading T.S. Eliot’s letters, one learns how an obscure work by an unknown writer is pushed to the attention of a... Updated 28 Oct, 2019 11:39am

The letters in the seventh volume of T.S. Eliot’s massive correspondence — written during 1934-35 when he was a... Updated 26 Aug, 2019 09:55am

As we read in history, since ancient times the Indian subcontinent has attracted explorers and invaders to raid its... Updated 24 Jun, 2019 09:40am

Much of today’s English-language poetry seems to be written by people who believe themselves to be poets, but have... Published 28 Apr, 2019 07:16am

Reality being a fiction that we apprehend in a combination of intertwined languages — which include scientific... Updated 04 Feb, 2019 11:08am

Some years ago I visited the English department of a university in Pakistan and, on entering the chairman’s ... Updated 26 Nov, 2018 03:32pm

Many readers may have heard of a French novel called La Disparition by Georges Perec, written without using the... Updated 16 Sep, 2018 10:37am

Summertime and the tourists are abroad, I among them, seeing the world through a veil of ignorance cast over it like... Published 22 Jul, 2018 07:59am

The shock that then jolts the reader is the substitution in the reader’s mind of the rats by people... Published 20 May, 2018 08:02am

It is cold midwinter and the line from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ‘Ode to the West Wind’ — “If Winter comes,... Published 18 Mar, 2018 07:09am