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A savage indictment of religious extremism and man s inhumanity to man, Lajja was banned in Bangladesh but became a bestseller in the rest of the world. This brand-new translation marks the twentieth anniversary of this controversial novel.
The Dattas Sudhamoy and Kironmoyee, and their children, Suronjon and Maya have lived in Bangladesh all their lives. Despite being members of a small Hindu community that is terrorized at every opportunity by Muslim fundamentalists, they refuse to leave their country, unlike most of their friends and relatives. Sudhamoy believes with a naive mix of optimism and idealism that his motherland will not let him down. And then, on 6 December 1992, the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya is demolished by a mob of Hindu fundamentalists. The world condemns the incident, but its immediate fallout is felt most acutely in Bangladesh, where Muslim mobs begin to seek out and attack the Hindus. The nightmare inevitably arrives at the Dattas doorstep, and their world begins to fall apart.
‘SUDDENLY, AS IF A WHIRLWIND HAD SET DOWN ROOTS IN THE CENTRE OF THE TOWN, THE BANANA COMPANY ARRIVED, PURSUED BY THE LEAF STORM’
As a blizzard of warehouses and amusement parlours and slums descends on the small town of Macondo, the inhabitants reel at the accompanying stench of rubbish that makes their home unrecognisable. When the banana company leaves town as fast as it arrived, all they are left with is a void of decay.
Living in this devastated and soulless wasteland is one last honourable man, the Colonel, who is determined to fulfil a long standing promise, no matter how unpalatable it may be. With the death of the detested Doctor, he must provide an honourable burial – and incur the wrath of the rest of Macondo, who would rather see the Doctor rot, forgotten and unattended.
This Ideas Of Lenin And Trotsky Are Without Doubt The Most Distorted And Slandered In Histoy. For More Than Eighty Years, They Have Been Subjected To An Onslaught From The Apolgists Of Capitalism, Who Have Attempted To Present Their Ideas – Bolshevism – As Both Totalitarian An Utopian. An Entire Industry Was Developed In An Attempt To Equate The Crimes Of Stalinism With The Regime Of Workers’ Democracy That Existed Under Lenin And Trotsky.
Authors : Alan Woods, Ted Grant
Publisher : Aakar Publications
He is perhaps the most acclaimed, revered and widely read writer of our time, and in this first volume of a planned trilogy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez begins to tell the story of his life. Living to Tell the Tale spans Marquez’s life from his birth in 1927 through the beginning of his career as a writer to the moment in the 1950s when he proposed to the woman who would become his wife. It is a tale of people, places and events as they occur to him: family, work, politics, books and music, his beloved Columbia, parts of his history until now undisclosed and incidents that would later appear, transmuted and transposed in his fiction. A vivid, powerful, beguiling memoir that gives us the formation of Marquez as a writer and as a man.
Lolita is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. Many authors consider it the greatest work of the 20th century, and it has been included in several lists of best books, such as Time’s List of the 100 Best Novels, Le Monde’s 100 Books of the Century, Bokklubben World Library, Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels, and The Big Read. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert, is obsessed with a 12-year-old girl, Dolores Haze, with whom he becomes sexually involved after he becomes her stepfather. “Lolita” is his private nickname for Dolores. The novel was originally written in English and first published in Paris in 1955 by Olympia Press. Later it was translated into Russian by Nabokov himself and published in New York City in 1967 by Phaedra Publishers.
Lolita quickly attained a classic status. The novel was adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, and another film by Adrian Lyne in 1997. It has also been adapted several times for the stage and has been the subject of two operas, two ballets, and an acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful Broadway musical. Its assimilation into popular culture is such that the name “Lolita” has been used to imply that a young girl is sexually precocious.
In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is heartbroken, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs—yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.
‘Spence draws upon his extensive knowledge of Chinese politics and culture to create an illuminating picture of Mao. . . . Superb.’ (Chicago Tribune) From humble origins in the provinces, Mao Zedong rose to absolute power, unifying with an iron fist a vast country torn apart by years of weak leadership, colonialism, and war. This sharply drawn and insightful account brings to life this modern-day emperor and the tumultuous era that he did so much to shape.
Jonathan Spence captures Mao in all his paradoxical grandeur and sheds light on the radical transformation he unleashed that still reverberates in China today.
One-sixth of all Indians today live in areas of armed conflict. Seeking solutions, this book is a holistic examination of present armed conflicts as well as the past ones in Punjab and Mizoram, illuminating their common roots, as well as the responses of the state and civil society. The authors show how insurgencies are propelled by a complex mix of issues: the denial of justice and rights, identity concerns, and the breakdown of the social and symbolic order, rather than merely poverty and lack of education. Draconian laws like the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and measures like encounters, crackdowns and Salwa Judum aggravate the sense of collective victimhood and feelings of alienation from the national community.
This book examines the uses made of anthropology by Marx and Engels, and the uses made of Marxism by anthropologists. Looking at the writings of Marx and Engels on primitive societies, the book evaluates their views in the light of present knowledge and draws attention to inconsistencies in their analysis of pre-capitalist societies. These inconsistencies can be traced to the influence of contemporary anthropologists who regarded primitive societies as classless. As Marxist theory was built around the idea of class, without this concept the conventional Marxist analysis foundered.
First published in 1983.
This book extends the theme of Raymond Williams’s earlier work in literary and cultural analysis. He analyses previous contributions to a Marxist theory of literature from Marx himself to Lukacs, Althusser, and Goldmann, and develops his own approach by outlining a theory of `cultural materialism’ which integrates Marxist theories of language with Marxist theories of literature. Williams moves from a review of the growth of the concepts of literature and idealogy to a redefinition of `determinism’ and `hegemony’. His incisive discussion of the ‘social material process’ of cultural activity culminates in a re-examination of the problems of alignment and commitment and of the creative practice in individual authors and wider social groups.
In Marxism and Philosophy Korsch argues for a reexamination of the relationship between Marxist theory and bourgeois philosophy, and insists on the centrality of the Hegelian dialectic and a commitment to revolutionary praxis. Although widely attacked in its time, Marxism and Philosophy has attained a place among the most important works of twentieth-century Marxist theory, and continues to merit critical reappraisal from scholars and activists today.
Publisher : Aakar Publications
In this collection of essays from 1969 to 2013, many in book form for the first time, Noam Chomsky examines the nature of state power, from the ideologies driving the Cold War to the War on Terror, and reintroduces the moral and legal questions that all too often go unheeded. With unrelenting logic, he holds the arguments of empire up to critical examination and shatters the myths of those who protect the power and privilege of the few against the interests and needs of the many. An introduction by Marcus Raskin contextualizes Chomsky’s place among some of the most influential thinkers of modern history.
Midnight’s Children is a 1981 novel by British Indian author Salman Rushdie. It deals with India’s transition from British colonialism to independence and the partition of British India. It is considered an example of postcolonial, postmodern, and magical realist literature.
The famous novel of revolutionary conversion and struggle.