tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-99399662024-03-28T14:16:58.204+05:30Known TurfThis is my turf. Whatever little I know and want to sayAnnie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.comBlogger1008125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-90057597470603798992024-02-07T23:54:00.004+05:302024-02-07T23:54:40.583+05:30Look out for 'Two Way Street'Very pleased to hear that 'Two Way Street,' a short film I wrote has been named by Platform magazine as one of the shorts to look out for in 2024. Do look out for it at festivals, screenings or wherever it might be available to watch. Here's what they say about the film: As a versatile artist encompassing roles as a screenwriter, filmmaker, actor, and stage lighting designer, Asmit has Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-66609699642976142342024-01-31T00:15:00.010+05:302024-02-04T00:20:24.040+05:30 Three new poems in UsawaThree new poems in Usawa Literary Review's tenth edition (Jan 2024) . One of them, below. There was a country we could have
been
There was a country we could have
been
together – utterly shapeless
and well past reform
A laughing country with as many
sides
as a well-cut diamond – tumbling
valleys
of rusty lakes, rivers above,
seas to the right and left
Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-73286042990648495012024-01-25T20:19:00.009+05:302024-01-31T00:00:50.705+05:30Review: Stories about being Muslim in contemporary IndiaMy review of Tabish Khair's latest collection, Namaste Trump and Other Stories: The book’s structure is imaginative, if also unusual. While its contents can be described as split into two broad sections–the novella Night of Happiness, which was published as a standalone in India in 2018, and a set of short stories–it would not be wise to read the novella as distinct from the stories. In factAnnie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-47909442925150615762024-01-24T18:40:00.001+05:302024-01-24T18:40:17.111+05:30Eaten by a lookIn Western fairy tales, a witch is a scary woman who might ‘eat’ you, cooked or uncooked. In South Asian fairy tales and folklore, she might eat you simply through gazing at you. Worse, she might marry you and then eat you at leisure.
I have been researching witches in contemporary South Asian fiction for my doctoral thesis (a work in progress) but in the meantime, I've published this blog post Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-76357921857008645032023-11-03T18:57:00.002+05:302023-11-03T18:57:25.524+05:30A brief meditation on selfies and resilience Once upon a time, I was judgmental about selfies. From film stars to your third cousin, everyone was pouting, clicking, and uploading selfies on social media, and I was disapproving. A photograph taken by others captures more of the physical environment, a more uncertain expression, a likeness that you cannot fully control. Selfies, on the other hand, give their subjects too much control. The Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-24515033320692444292023-10-02T19:29:00.006+05:302023-10-02T19:29:57.464+05:30A first attempt at translating proseShakeela Akhtar was one of the earliest women writers of Urdu fiction in the twentieth century. Born and buried in Bihar, she was obviously deeply rooted in the local landscape, local dialects and, if we are to use this story as any indication, in the texture of its social relations.I do not claim to know the body of her work, and I am but a fledgling translator. However, I chanced upon ‘Dain’ inAnnie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-77927006155649868382023-08-29T19:53:00.003+05:302023-08-29T20:11:59.963+05:30Some sad newsTerrible news. Desraj Kali is gone. Other people have written detailed obits, and friends like Shekhar have written personal accounts that show the sort of man he was, the instant acceptance, warmth and affection he offered even to strangers. I feel a bit numb and don't know where to begin. I have written about Kali (he referred to himself as Kali, and so I did too) in Bantering with Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-53890152209185428232023-08-08T22:44:00.000+05:302023-08-08T22:44:30.438+05:30Book alert!Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales (Aleph 2023) is just out. This is a new edition of Known Turf (2010), with a fresh Introduction chapter and a lot of footnotes that update the book's information with newer data, which lend it fresh context. This book of essays was nominated for the Crossword book prize in the non-fiction category when it first came out, and had a bunch of mostly Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-52039926327136252762023-08-05T22:32:00.006+05:302023-08-06T01:10:52.843+05:30Kaise unhein dikhayein jo parvaane jal gaye - Ali Jawad ZaidiHere is a transcription of one of my grandfather's ghazals, for those who are interested in poetry but can't read the script. I thought I'd make a valiant effort to translate the poem into English but after staring at the first couplet for fifteen minutes, I gave up. Here's the poem in Roman script anyway:Ghazal: page 222 (Naseem-e-dasht-e-aarzu)Kaise unhein dikhayein jo parvaane jal gayeShole Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-85554947900630059842023-07-22T15:53:00.002+05:302023-07-22T15:53:16.558+05:30Some rollicking late summer funI reviewed a new production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is still as much fun as it was four hundred years ago. It speaks to the power and longevity of a good script.Link to the review: https://readdurhamenglish.wordpress.com/2023/07/22/rollicking-review-of-a-midsummer-nights-dream-by-elysium-theatre-company/Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-6173243793959874812023-06-18T00:33:00.003+05:302023-06-18T00:33:31.722+05:30Not quite a review: Ma is Scared and Other StoriesWhat is a Dalit perspective in literature? How does it differ from the phrase 'Dalit literature'? These were some of the questions I have been musing upon since reading Anjali Kajal's Ma is Scared, and other stories, translated by Kavita Bhanot. This book is unusual for three reasons. Firstly, it is not just a translation but also an original compilation. Kajal has been writing and Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-24444033972845851532023-05-21T00:07:00.007+05:302023-05-21T00:07:52.982+05:30Sad Stories You are Old Enough to HearEight years ago, I had my first essay accepted in the Griffith Review. 'Embodying Venus' was a meditation on women's bodies and (un)covering and the politics around it. There were a few more pieces in the journal since: 'Golden Girls' about the rise of young female wrestlers in India, 'Dangerous Little Things' about the significance of student politics, and a short story about ideological wars onAnnie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-62484266774591367872023-04-15T19:20:00.005+05:302023-04-15T19:20:58.856+05:30A review of Moyukh Chatterjee’s Composing Violence: The Limits of Exposure and the Making of MinoritiesIf a government is driven by the need to secure majority mandates, what incentives does it have to secure minority rights? In fact, if all institutions are ultimately answerable to majoritarian sentiments, if the creation of an unyielding majority is a constant political necessity, it stands to reason that the re-creation of minorities is also essential. Moyukh Chatterjee’s Composing Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-50419758236990551762023-02-24T02:21:00.004+05:302023-02-24T02:24:09.935+05:30A belated note of gratitude I had intended to do this around the new year but better late than never. I have been thinking about unpaid labours of love, art and so on. Gender stuff aside, I have benefited from other people putting their work and their knowledge into the world for free. They do this via multiple platforms (many people make apps and other software and tech stuff available for free too) and in Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-48496651311195037912023-02-24T02:07:00.005+05:302023-02-24T02:07:44.450+05:30A translated poem, and a wonderful new poetRecently, I translated a poem of the contemporary Hindi poet Amitabh Bachchan (not the film actor). It was entirely spontaneous for I saw him share the poem on Facebook and was so moved by it, I immediately wanted to share it with a non-Hindi reading audience. I share, below, the poem in the original and the translation. Life of a graveGraves don't just live in graveyardsSome live at Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-40820399935041501462023-01-28T18:23:00.006+05:302023-01-28T18:23:52.448+05:30A review of 'In Your Tongue, I cannot Fit'This is a difficult book to review in that it does not adhere to any literary format. It includes poetry, but it is not an anthology. It includes art, but it is not an art book. Broadly, the book serves as a document and a testament, a creative intervention on a continuum of silencing. In the photographs of the art installation, where poems were printed and placed on spikes, it is impossible to Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-19032960211154626562022-12-11T03:08:00.005+05:302023-02-24T01:58:51.365+05:30Two new poemsI have two poems out in a special edition of the Portside Review, focused on what is 'Endangered'. Editor Sampurna Chattarji picked two very different poems though they are thematically linked in that they look at danger from different perspectives.In ‘The sky fails to fall’, I address the destruction implicit in a lack of consequence. What if the skies don’t fall when they should? There are Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-78972498210879064252022-11-29T18:07:00.003+05:302022-12-11T02:54:14.195+05:30Current researchMany of you do not know but over the past year, I've gone back to studies. I'm in the second year of a PhD (English Studies/Creative Writing) at Durham University in the UK. (Please hold your congratulations until I've actually finished doing this; send good luck and fortitude instead). It has been over two decades since I was a scholar and I was rather nervous about my own aptitude viz academic Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-72322116545199163692022-11-11T18:55:00.004+05:302022-11-12T17:45:15.558+05:30On Reading Sara Suleri's Meatless DaysWhat a thing it is to discover a good book decades after it has been written! I wonder why nobody told me to read Sara Suleri's Meatless Days before? There were so many South Asian, especially diasporic, novels discussed over the last twenty years but not once did I hear anyone say: if you just want to look at good writing -- experimental writing that defies assumptions of genre -- read Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-84174467564253697282022-11-07T18:18:00.002+05:302022-11-07T18:18:13.718+05:30After Sappho: a reviewSpanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the story introduces the reader to women who rejected factory and homestead and immersed themselves in classical poetry, plays, novels, pamphlets, paintings, dancing. The performers among them responded to contemporary works such as Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Oscar Wilde’s Salome, while others such as Colette, Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-75663826574187877252022-08-30T20:46:00.001+05:302022-08-30T20:46:07.293+05:30Review of CI've written a long, critical review of the 'C: A Novel'. A short extract and a link to the full review below:She moves to the more prosaic revelation that she cannot counter a man who says the right things but does not give her what she needs. While other details of space and location do pull the narrative in other directions, it arches back to the question of a relationship that is intense but Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-62955998645486640052022-07-07T22:23:00.006+05:302022-07-21T20:52:44.968+05:30Seven notes on HopeA few weeks ago, I was invited to contribute to the Hope Project by the University of York. This is a series of conversations with writers and scholars, those looking for a way forward despite all the bad news. In the midst of intense climate change, illness, a pandemic, cultural and physical destruction in various parts of the world, how do we hold onto hope? I responded with a long Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-60452642948224212762022-06-19T06:12:00.002+05:302022-06-19T06:20:31.378+05:30A staging, at lastIt has taken thirteen years but, finally, my play 'Name, Place, Animal, Thing' got staged. The Bay Area Drama Company produced it and Rita Bhatia directed the shows ran at Sunnyvale Theatre recently.This script was shortlisted for The Hindu Playwrights prize in 2009, but was not staged at the time, partly because I was a freelance journalist who had very little contact with theatre makers. A Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-59721903972790159482022-06-05T21:51:00.001+05:302022-07-17T16:30:19.078+05:30"Against the impossible dimensions of this city, the 12 small lives flicker bravely..."A new review of City of Incident: "Against the impossible dimensions of this city, the 12 small lives flicker bravely under the razor-gaze of the author’s lens. It begins with a moment, an image, a mood that flowers into a story. One life is linked to another, seeds are sown in an early chapter that will sprout in a later one. Sometimes it is a vague intersection, the sort of thing thatAnnie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9939966.post-34378261713994698902022-06-02T16:25:00.003+05:302022-06-05T21:54:05.134+05:30City of Incident: Reviews"We are reminded that the author’s voice, shining through the telling, illuminating the prose, is what keeps the novel vital and alive. While binge-watching leaves us exhausted and glazed-eyed in the wake of a series, when we dive into the quiet, transformative pool of powerful prose, we emerge renewed."- A review by Devapriya Roy in the Indian Express"Sight and insight; every episode, and there Annie Zaidihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08687223598027157611noreply@blogger.com0