Malashri Lal

Salma is a consummate storyteller, blending poetry and prose, gossip and history. Lakshmi Holmstrom's admirable translation carries the reader into the sweep of oral, talkative, busy people.

Warning note that we need not give up all that is local to chalk our success; that we need indigenous, self-determined identities

Saraogi's fantastical reconstructions fill in a major silence in the evolution of Bengal's history - with a partial voice no doubt

This collection makes us privy to the man behind the words, his strengths and vulnerabilities uncovered as a chronicle of his life never told in this fashion.

Thirteen tales of life's lengthening shadows