Remembering Asha Bhosle - the singer and restaurnteur

   

There was a loss felt by the expatriate community with the death of Asha Bhosle, the celebrated singer known as “nightingale of India.” In Dubai, the Indian restaurant, Asha’s in Wafi City was shut down for one day as they mourned the soul behind a beautiful place of dining. In addition to being a great singer, Asha Bhosle was also an excellent entrepreneur with her chain of Indian restaurants all around the Middle East. 

I have had the privilege to visit some of these restaurants, especially Asha’s in City Centre Mall in Bahrain. It was a wonderful experience to get the feel of music through the delicacies offered there. Asha was an extremely disciplined woman in all aspects. From childhood, she did not eat anything that could affect her vocals. Her restaurants were also a reflection of her personality. With graceful hospitality, she made sure that every item presented in her restaurants was carefully selected. 

She is awarded the prestigious Padma Vibhushan award along with the Dadasaheb Phalke award for her excellence in the field. In addition, she was also the holder of Guinness World record as the most recorded artist.

LitRadar - April 15, 2026 -The Land of Sweet Forever by Harper Lee

 

Publishing a book long after an author’s death often raises doubts about its quality, especially in the case of Harper Lee, given the earlier controversy over Go Set a Watchman. Her new collection, The Land of Sweet Forever, is simply a set of unpublished stories and essays, mainly appealing to dedicated fans. The stories are mostly underdeveloped and lack strong structure, though they occasionally show hints of Lee’s wit and deeper themes. The essays feel routine and uninspired, even when discussing figures like Truman Capote. Overall, while the book fails as literature, it is interesting for what it reveals about Lee’s restrained voice and the social limitations she faced.

 

Reference – 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/oct/21/the-land-of-sweet-forever-by-harper-lee-review-newly-discovered-stories-from-an-american-great

 

“I am more of a rewriter than a writer,” Lee once said, explaining that she generally worked through at least three drafts of any given piece of writing. As that suggests, she was devoted to her work and, at least at first, strikingly disciplined about it. “I generally get a good day’s work done every day,” she wrote in a letter to one of her sisters in October 1950: “If I paid myself overtime, I’d be rich.” She went on to describe a typical writing day during this era:

 

From around noon, work on the first draft. By dinnertime, I’ve usually put my idea down. I then stop for a sandwich or a full meal, depending on whether I’ve got to think more about the story or just finish it. After dinner, I work on a second draft, which involves sometimes tearing the story up and putting it together again in an entirely different way, or just keeping at it until everything is like I want it. Then I retype it on white paper, conforming to rules of manuscript preparation, and run out & mail it. That sounds simple, but sometimes I have worked through the night on one; usually I end up around two or three in the morning.”

 

Excerpt From The Land of Sweet Forever by Harper Lee

 

LitRadar - April 14, 2026 - Wild Capital: Discovering Nature in Delhi by Neha Sinha - The Hindu Sunday Magazine Review

The book highlights a shift in contemporary nature writing—from distant wilderness to the overlooked ecological life within cities. Sinha’s work blends rigorous field observation with personal memory, revealing a “parallel city” of birds, trees, and animals coexisting within Delhi’s urban landscape. The book emphasizes that urban nature is not separate from human life but deeply entangled with it, often requiring more nuanced understanding than conventional environmental narratives suggest.

 

A central theme of the book is loss and remembrance. Through vivid sensory descriptions and reflections, Sinha documents how Delhi’s biodiversity—once rich with species like wolves, vultures, and blackbuck—has diminished over time. Yet rather than being purely nostalgic, the narrative becomes an act of remembering what has been forgotten, drawing attention to the concept of “shifting baseline syndrome,” where gradual environmental degradation becomes normalized.

 

Ultimately, the book is both a memoir and a call to action. It urges readers to rethink their relationship with urban ecosystems, to notice and value the non-human life around them, and to recognize that cities are not just built environments but shared habitats. The reviewer praises Sinha’s ability to combine ecological insight with emotional depth, making the book a powerful reflection on memory, coexistence, and environmental responsibility.

LitRadar - April 13, 2026 - Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, first published in a 2002 issue of The Paris Review, is a remarkable example of what can be called an “epic in miniature.” In just over a hundred pages, Johnson chronicles the life of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker in early 20th-century America—an ordinary man whose story reflects the quiet depth of lives often left undocumented, much like the migrant labourers who build our cities today. The novella engages with the spatial memory of the American frontier, where landscapes are not mere backdrops but living presences shaping human experience. Echoing, at moments, the world of John Steinbeck’s labouring characters, Johnson’s narrative remains more inward, attentive to solitude, memory, and endurance. What makes Train Dreams especially compelling is its subtle exploration of the relationship between nature and human beings. Moments of violence appear almost seamlessly within serene natural settings, unsettling the reader and emphasizing the indifference of the natural world. The line, “The dead tree is as important as the living one,” encapsulates this ecological and philosophical vision. Time, too, flows in an unusual rhythm—drifting, collapsing, and echoing the strange temporality of Rip Van Winkle. As America rapidly transforms, Grainier’s life unfolds in fragments, marked by loss, fleeting encounters, and quiet resilience. In its brevity and stillness, the novella captures the profound truth that even the most unrecorded lives carry a depth and beauty that endure beyond their telling.

 

Train Dreams, the movie is streaming on Netflix 

Media Scan 12-04-26 - The Hindu - Sunday magazine

 

LitRadar - April 12, 2026 - Abscond - a short story by Abraham Varghese

I read the foreword written by Abraham Verghese to When Breath Becomes Air by Dr. Paul Kalanithi, and it left a lasting impression on me. As a doctor, confronting death may be part of daily life, yet the emotional weight it carries is never routine. Death is not merely an end; it creates a void for those who continue to live beyond the person who has passed.

It took me two days to read Verghese’s 38-page narrative. I found myself dividing the reading experience into two emotional phases: the story before the death in the family and the story after it. This division shaped my understanding of the narrative’s tone and depth.

The story revolves around an Indian surgeon living in the United States with his wife and their only son, Ravi. As a child of Indian immigrants, Ravi struggles with questions of identity and belonging—a theme commonly explored in diasporic writing, including the works of Kiran Desai. Verghese poignantly observes, “To be the child of Indian parents meant you also had a secret self. Like having brown skin, you had no choice.” This line captures the quiet duality of Ravi’s existence.

Ravi also bears the weight of parental expectations. His parents envision a future for him as a surgeon, following in his father’s footsteps, even though his own passion lies in playing tennis. His mother’s words—“Kanna! … You know it’s your destiny to be a surgeon like your appa, don’t you?”—reflect the subtle yet powerful pressures placed upon him.

Amid these tensions, Ravi finds solace in his friendship with his American neighbour, Billy. The two boys are inseparable, often described as twins. As Ravi’s mother remarks, “Geography and fate brought you two together… In your past life, you were twins.” Their bond offers Ravi a sense of understanding and belonging that he struggles to find within his own family.

Another significant figure in the narrative is Mr. McGilicutty, a retired stockbroker and widower who shares a close relationship with Ravi’s family. He is both a confidant and an elder figure—someone Ravi’s father consults for financial advice, and whom Ravi’s mother both respects and gently manages, advising him on everyday matters. His presence adds warmth and depth to the family’s social world.

After the death, the narrative becomes quieter and more introspective. The focus shifts to how each character processes grief and learns to live with absence. The story captures the subtle, enduring ways in which loss reshapes relationships and everyday life, emphasizing not just the event of death, but the long, silent work of continuing afterward. 

Abscond is available for free through a Kindle Unlimited subscription. Drawn by the compelling writing style and ideas of Abraham Verghese, I have now begun reading his much-discussed and widely reviewed novel, The Covenant of Water. 

 

LitRadar - April 11, 2026 - Before the Coffee Gets Cold - Toshikazu Kawaguchi

'Before the Coffee Gets Cold' is a novel by the Japanese author Toshikazu Kawaguchi. It is a sweet story about an average café located in Tokyo where individuals can travel back in time if their cup of coffee stays hot. In this story, readers are taken through a journey into how humans deal with regrets and strive to make up for mistakes made in the past through remembering experiences of the past. 

 

The setting of 'Before the Coffee Gets Cold' is a small and ancient café located in an alley of Tokyo. What makes this cafe unique is the tradition that allows customers to relive past events which brings happiness and relief from the worries of life. In the story, the café gets many visitors for one summer whose primary motive is to relive past events to solve their problems. 

 

The theme of this book is based on human relations and the effects of time travel on decision-making and memory recall. Through the author's messages, readers are encouraged not to spend much time regretting their mistakes in the past because nothing could be done even when they get back there. 

War Narratives - Rescue Missions

The Hollywood depiction of warfare has been known to centre on stories about rescue missions, which involve both action and a profound moral dilemma. Most of these movies feature soldiers who find themselves in desperate situations, either stranded, taken captive, or protecting civilians, and they must be rescued at all costs. Some examples include Behind Enemy Lines, Black Hawk Down, which is characterized by chaos in battle, and Lone Survivor, which emphasizes perseverance after an unsuccessful mission. Likewise, Tears of the Sun and The Covenant deal with the challenges of being torn between fulfilling one’s duties and practicing humanity. In most cases, Hollywood’s depictions are inspired by real-life incidents, and in most of them, the rescue mission is what defines the plot and gives it depth and meaning.

LitRadar - April 10, 2026 - Loneliness and Literature - Article Summary - The Hindu e-paper 9426

Loneliness, even though intensely private, may be considered as one of the most universal human emotions. In the contemporary era of intense connectivity, according to the author, loneliness becomes paradoxical because more people experience a feeling of being alone while interacting constantly online. The issue of loneliness is recognized not only on an individual level but also becomes a problem to address at the global health level – a fact proven by the inclusion of this phenomenon in the agenda of the World Health Organization.

 

Literary works explore many different aspects of human lives and loneliness is one of those themes that is frequently mentioned in literary analysis. For instance, in the book, "The Lonely City" by Olivia Laing, the author considers the issues associated with the interplay between art, human history, and experiences of loneliness. The same goes for The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, which consider this subject about relationship difficulties, migration, and identity issues. Finally, in such literary works as Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine written by Gail Honeyman, loneliness is present on the level of personal routine of characters.

 

Being silent and invisible, it is often hard to recognize.

It may accompany a person during crowds.

This is often characterized by emotional complexity including shame and longing.

It often emerges indirectly through artistic representation.

 

Thus, loneliness is thriving in silence and needs to be addressed through recognition. Literature and memoirs may help with that. 

 

Books mentioned in the article:  

The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone - Olivia Laing

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny - Kiran Desai

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman

 

 

LitRadar - April 9, 2026 - Knife by Salman Rushdie

                       

Knife is the memoir written by Salman Rushdie that describes an attempt on his life in 2022, years after he was accused of blasphemy. At a meeting focused on the defence of writers' rights, Rushdie was attacked and suffered multiple injuries that resulted in the loss of one eye. In his memoir, Rushdie talks about this terrifying experience, paying attention to its duration and vividness. Besides the process of recovering from injuries, he goes through deep emotional distress, including feelings of self-doubt that lead him to question himself. Later, he understands the phenomenon of being frozen in such a situation. The book mixes terrible experiences with more amusing ones. It also touches upon the life of his wife Rachel Eliza Griffiths. As an important theme, the memoir raises questions related to mortality, friendship, and creativity and even has a discussion with his attacker.

Reference:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/15/books/review/salman-rushdie-knife.html

Roots of Resistance: Reading the Rise of Dalit Literature - Article Summary - 5-04-26 - Sunday Literary Magazine - The Hindu

In recent years, Dalit literature has moved from the margins to a more visible and powerful space in Indian literary culture. What was once confined to regional languages and limited readerships is now expanding through translations, academic engagement, and a growing community of readers. This shift is not just literary—it is deeply political and cultural.

 

At its core, Dalit writing is rooted in lived experience. It speaks of caste oppression, humiliation, survival, and resistance, but it also goes beyond testimony. Contemporary Dalit literature experiments with genres—fiction, memoir, speculative writing, philosophy—and reimagines history, memory, and identity. It challenges dominant narratives and asks uncomfortable questions about justice, equality, and representation.

 

What makes this body of work especially significant is its diversity. There is no single Dalit voice. Instead, there are multiple perspectives shaped by region, gender, class, and experience. Writers engage with themes such as labour, spirituality, sexuality, and modernity, while also dialoguing with global ideas. For instance, works that bring Ambedkar into conversation with Western philosophy open new intellectual pathways.

 

Importantly, Dalit literature is not only about critique—it is also about reclaiming dignity and imagining alternatives. Concepts like Begumpura envision a just society free from caste hierarchies. Similarly, narratives rooted in community life foreground resilience and collective memory.

 

 

Books to Explore 

Sanatan – Sharankumar Limbale (translated by Meena Kandasamy)

The Ambedkar and Nietzsche: Provocations – Ankith Kawade

The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India – 

Shailaja Paik

Untouchable Spring – G. Kalyana Rao (translated by Alladi Uma & M. Sridhar)

The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF (Blaft Publication)

Gail Omvedt's Seeking Begumpura (Navayana)

S. Karuppasamy's first book, Naan Loco Pilot Aana Kathai 

(The Story of Becoming a Loco Pilot, Tathagata Publishing House)

 

LitRadar - April 7, 2026 - Das Deutsche Volk /"The German People"

Das deutsche Volk (2025), directed by Marcin Wierzchowski, is a stark black-and-white documentary that examines the aftermath of the 2020 racist attack in Hanau, Germany, where a far-right extremist killed nine young people because he did not consider them German. Rather than revisiting the attack itself, the film follows the victims’ families and survivors over four years, focusing on grief, loss, and the long struggle for justice and recognition.

 

Told from the perspective of the bereaved, the film shows how the violence continues to shape both personal lives and the wider community. It reveals the families’ frustration with institutional failures, political inaction, and a bureaucratic system that leaves them to uncover the truth on their own—despite Germany’s long history of right-wing violence.

 

Avoiding narration and reenactments, the documentary centres memory as lived experience. It not only documents grief and activism but also becomes a form of memorial itself. Ultimately, Das deutsche Volk raises pressing questions about belonging, national identity, and whose lives—and memories—are truly valued.

Reference 

https://www.berlinale.de/en/2025/programme/202509513.html

 

LitRadar - April 6, 2026 - City as Memory by Sadaf Wani

 

This 160-page book reminds us that a city cannot be understood through its tourist spots and scenic beauty alone. Its real story lies in the everyday struggles and lived experiences of its people.

Kashmir, as the book shows, is far removed from the images presented in media and popular cinema. It is a region caught in complex tensions—where religion, politics, nationalism, and fanaticism remain deeply entangled.

Through this work, Sadaf Wani offers a deeply personal and grounded account, highlighting the importance of journalism and fieldwork in understanding such a layered space.

An insightful read for anyone interested in the history of Kashmir and willing to rethink their perceptions of a highly politicised region.

Sadaf Wani’s book ‘City as Memory’ looks at Kashmir through people’s everyday experiences instead of politics. She focuses on memories, emotions, and personal stories of Srinagar. She highlights a key difference between generations: older people remember peaceful times and feel hopeful, while younger people, who grew up in conflict, often feel pessimistic. Her book also shows how conflict disrupts normal life and even the sense of time, with certain years standing out more than everyday moments. Wani pays special attention to women’s experiences in public spaces and how social factors affect their freedom. She also reflects on changing relations between communities, especially the loss of earlier harmony, while noting that shared language still connects people. Overall, the book tries to humanize Srinagar and encourage Kashmiris to share and understand each other’s experiences.

Read more: 

https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/kashmir-sadaf-wani-new-book-city-as-memory-short-biography-of-srinagar/article68467706.ece

Media Scan - 5-04-26

 

LitRadar - April 5, 2026 - The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

                            

Memory, Power, and Exile: Reading Kundera – A Review by John Updike 

 

John Updike describes Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting as both brilliant and unsettling. The book resists easy classification—part fiction, part history, part philosophical reflection—and reflects Kundera’s own fractured life under and beyond Communist Czechoslovakia. At its core lies a powerful idea: the struggle between memory and forgetting. Political regimes erase inconvenient truths, rewriting history, while individuals desperately try to hold onto fading personal memories. For Kundera, remembering becomes an act of resistance. Updike highlights how deeply politics shapes private lives. In Kundera’s world, love, loyalty, and identity are entangled with ideology. Motives are often misunderstood, and emotional truths hide beneath political gestures. Despite its title, the book offers little real laughter. Instead, humor turns analytical and even cruel. Similarly, sexuality appears detached, reflecting a broader sense of alienation. Human connection feels fragile, often stripped of meaning. Updike ultimately sees Kundera as a writer in exile—caught between East and West, certainty and doubt. His work is rich and thought-provoking, yet deliberately unsettling, leaving readers to confront a world where memory is unstable and meaning remains unresolved.

Read the original article 

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/kundera-laughter.html

Media Scan - 04--04-26

 

LitRadar - April 4, 2026 - Students Etched in Memory by Perumal Murugan

                      

In Students Etched in Memory, Perumal Murugan offers a series of reflective essays based on his experiences as a Tamil teacher over three decades. Originally published as newspaper columns, these pieces move away from conventional success narratives and instead explore the complex realities of his students’ lives. Murugan portrays a wide range of students—ambitious, troubled, talented, and vulnerable—while also revealing his own growth as an educator. He emphasizes empathy, mentorship, and the importance of engaging with students beyond academics. The essays critique structural problems in education, including social inequality, rigid systems, and the burden of English on rural students. Murugan also reflects on gender limitations in teaching, economic hardships, and ethical concerns such as corruption in research. Importantly, the book does not shy away from tragedy: students dropping out, facing poverty, or even dying. At the same time, it celebrates small victories and personal transformations. Through these narratives, Murugan underscores that education is deeply tied to social realities and human relationships. The translation preserves the simplicity and warmth of Murugan’s voice, making the work accessible and engaging.

Reference 

https://www.thehindu.com/books/review-of-perumal-murugan-students-etched-in-memory/article69674210.ece

LitRadar - April 3, 2026 - Maus by Art Spiegelman

Maus by Art Spiegelman is a Pulitzer Prize–winning graphic narrative originally published in two volumes—'My Father Bleeds History’ (1986) and ‘And Here My Troubles Began’ (1991), later combined as ‘The Complete Maus’. The work portrays the Holocaust through anthropomorphic imagery, representing Jews as mice and Germans as cats, a stylistic choice that initially drew controversy but ultimately proved powerful and innovative. Blending history, biography, and autobiography, the narrative unfolds across two intertwined timelines. One focuses on Spiegelman’s own life, especially his strained relationship with his father, Vladek, and the lingering trauma surrounding his mother Anja’s death. The other reconstructs his parents’ experiences in pre-war Europe, their survival through Auschwitz and the Holocaust, and their eventual displacement and resettlement. Together, these strands create a deeply personal and historically significant account that reshaped the possibilities of graphic storytelling while offering a profound reflection on memory, trauma, and survival.

Reference: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/movies/spiegelman-disaster-is-my-muse-review.html
 

LitRadar - April 2, 2026 - Time Shelter - Georgi Gospodinov

 

“Years later, when many of his memories had already scattered like frightened pigeons, he could still go back to that morning when he was wandering aimlessly through the streets of Vienna, and a vagrant with a mustache like García Márquez’s was selling newspapers on the sidewalk in the early March sun. A wind blew up and several of the newspapers swirled into the air. He tried to help, chasing down two or three and returning them. You can keep one, said Márquez.” (Excerpt from Time Shelter - Georgi Gospodinov, page 14) 

 

Time Shelter, winner of the International Booker Prize, presents a powerful idea: forgetting the past can be dangerous for both individuals and societies. The novel follows a narrator who collects memories and partners with Gaustine to create a unique clinic in Switzerland. Each floor of the clinic recreates a different decade through objects, sounds, and smells, allowing patients with memory loss to relive happier times. Initially, the experiment succeeds, as patients reconnect with their “internal time,” even to the point of believing they can change the past. However, what begins as a therapeutic project gradually expands across Europe, taking a darker turn. Entire nations attempt to recreate chosen periods of their history, culminating in referendums where countries vote on which decade to return to. These efforts expose deep divisions, as each nation clings to its own version of the past, often shaped by suffering rather than happiness. The result is confusion and conflict, as shared history becomes impossible. Ultimately, the novel suggests that nostalgia can be dangerous when it overwhelms the present. While memory can comfort, an excessive return to the past leads to fragmentation and chaos. Despite its serious themes, the narrative is held together by a subtle sense of humour that keeps the story engaging. The novel might have become a purely intellectual exercise, but Georgi Gospodinov brings emotional depth and warmth to the story. The narrator closely reflects the author himself—a Bulgarian shaped by the end of communism, a moment that lingers between past and present. While he shows genuine affection for that era, he also views it critically. Through fragmented memories, Gospodinov creates vivid, fully realized characters, and smoothly shifts between humour, sadness, absurdity, and tragedy. These nuances are effectively conveyed to English readers through Angela Rodel’s sensitive translation. The title Time Shelter itself suggests a paradox: both escaping from time and finding refuge within it—ideas that are appealing but ultimately unattainable. The novel reconsiders nostalgia, portraying it not as a harmless comfort but as something more dangerous, like a fuel that consumes the present and limits the future.

 

“The first thing that goes in memory loss is the very concept of the future.” Time Shelter

 (Excerpt from Time Shelter - Georgi Gospodinov, page 124) 

 

 

Reference

https://www.the-tls.com/literature/fiction/time-shelter-georgi-gospodinov-book-review-anna-aslanyan

 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/20/time-shelter-by-georgi-gospodinov-review-the-dangers-of-dwelling-in-the-past

 

Media Scan 1-04-26

LitRadar - April 1, 2026 - Ignorance by Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera's novel "Ignorance" explores the complexities of memory, nostalgia, and the experience of returning home after a long absence. The  irony in the novel is related the Odyssean homecoming, where the protagonist finds that home is not as he remembered it. In Ignorance, Milan Kundera revisits his recurring themes of memory, exile, and the tension between emotional “lightness” and “weight.” Echoing his idea from The Art of the Novel that novelists develop variations on a central theme, this novel follows Irena, a Czech émigré returning to her homeland after twenty years. Inspired by the myth of Odysseus, her journey promises a meaningful homecoming but instead reveals disconnection, as her past and her country have both changed beyond recognition. Alongside Irena is Josef, another returnee who represents emotional detachment rather than nostalgia. Their anticipated reunion exposes the fragility of memory and desire, culminating in a hollow encounter that underscores how imagined pasts rarely match reality. Kundera blends philosophical reflections with everyday incidents, showing how private lives intersect with broader historical shifts, while characters like Milada quietly embody loneliness and emotional truth. Ultimately, Ignorance becomes a meditation on the limits of memory and the illusion of return. Whether through Irena’s longing or Josef’s indifference, Kundera suggests that neither remembering nor forgetting offers resolution. Instead, the novel presents exile as a universal human condition, where the past cannot be reclaimed and understanding remains incomplete.

 

Reference:

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/06/books/shut-up-memory.html

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/nov/16/fiction.milankundera

 

 

 

 

Reclaiming the Past: Women, Memory, and the Making of History

The article argues that women’s writing transforms personal memory into a powerful historical archive, challenging male-dominated narratives of the past. By blending memoir, literature, and ethnography, writers bring into focus lived experiences shaped by class, caste, gender, and inequality, showing that memory is not merely private but deeply political. Annie Ernaux, in ‘I Will Write to Avenge My People’, presents writing as an act of justice that uncovers hidden social truths, influenced by ‘The Second Sex’. Similarly, Asiya Islam’s ‘A Woman's Job: Making Middle Lives in New India’ explores the lives of working-class urban women, highlighting how aspirations for mobility are shaped and often limited by enduring structures of inequality. The collection ‘Women Writing History: Three Generations’ by Romila Thapar, Kumkum Roy, and Preeti Gulati further reflects on how history itself is shaped by the identities and experiences of those who write it, revealing the gendered challenges within academia and historiography. Together, these works demonstrate that women’s writing does not simply recount the past but actively reconstructs it, turning individual memory into a collective record that questions dominant histories and creates new ways of understanding time, experience, and truth.

https://www.thehindu.com/books/from-memory-to-archive-womens-writing-creates-new-ways-to-narrate-the-past/article70799645.ece

LitRadar - March 30, 2026 - Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck

                     

Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck is a deeply unsettling yet powerful novel that intertwines a destructive love story with the political collapse of East Germany. The story begins with Katharina learning of her former lover Hans’s death and revisiting their past through his papers. Their relationship starts in East Berlin in 1986, marked from the beginning by imbalance—Katharina is young and inexperienced, while Hans is much older, married, and controlling. What initially appears to be profound love gradually turns toxic. Hans becomes manipulative and abusive, attempting to dominate and “re-educate” Katharina after her brief infidelity. As their relationship deteriorates, it mirrors the broader disintegration of East Germany during the fall of communism. Erpenbeck blends the personal and political, showing how private lives are shaped by historical forces. Even after the Berlin Wall falls, Katharina’s liberation is incomplete, as she confronts a new world driven by consumerism that feels equally empty. The novel ultimately presents a bleak view of both love and modern life, leaving unresolved emotional and historical questions.

 

Jenny Erpenbeck (born 1967, East Berlin) is a novelist, playwright, and opera director. After early work in theatre, she gained international acclaim with works like Visitation, The End of Days, and Go, Went, Gone. Her novel Kairos won the International Booker Prize in 2024, cementing her global reputation.

 

Kairos vs Chronos

Chronos refers to clock time — the measurable, linear progression of seconds, minutes, and years that we count. In contrast, Kairos signifies the right or opportune moment — a meaningful, decisive point in time that we feel rather than measure. Simply put, Chronos is the quantity of time, while Kairos is the quality of time, reminding us that not all moments are equal.

 

 

Reference 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/08/kairos-by-jenny-erpenbeck-review-a-monumental-breakup

 

https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/features/reading-guide-kairos-by-jenny-erpenbeck

 

LitRadar - March 29, 2026 - Human Acts by Han Kang

“Human Acts” is a moving novel that deals with the harsh realities of the Gwangju Uprising and its lingering psychological and moral effects on the people of South Korea. The novel indicates that violence is not always a standalone phenomenon but is often linked with other violent events, as evidenced by the fact that soldiers who had perpetrated violence during the Vietnam War brought their experiences with them when they arrived at Gwangju. Once violence has been unleashed, there is no going back, no return to a time before its existence.

 

The novel, against the backdrop of the political unrest that followed the assassination of President Park Chung-hee, recounts the events surrounding the protest for democracy, the escalating nature of the protest, and the brutal response by the military. The novel commences with the killing of a boy, Dong-ho, and proceeds through various time periods, narrators, and perspectives, all of whom are affected by the events of the massacre.

 

Han Kang, drawing from her personal experiences with Gwangju, combines reality with personal narratives, making for a compelling read. The novel has a fluid narrator, often addressing a haunting figure, “You,” which is a metaphor for a fragmented self, one that has become alienated from their true self, their humanity.

 

The novel, despite dealing with harsh realities, humanises political violence through its focus on individual experiences, and ultimately raises a pertinent question on humanity: what does it mean to be human, and how do we stay human in the face of extreme brutality, without providing answers but rather asking the reader to witness.

 

Han Kang – Prose. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2026. Sat. 28 Mar 2026. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/han/prose/>

 

This morning, when you asked how many dead were being transferred from the Red Cross hospital today, Jin-su’s reply was no more elaborate than it needed to be: thirty. While the leaden mass of the anthem’s refrain rises and falls, rises and falls, thirty coffins will be lifted down from the truck, one by one. They will be placed in a row next to the twenty-eight that you and Jin-su laid out this morning, the line stretching all the way from the gym to the fountain. Before yesterday evening, twenty-six of the eighty-three coffins hadn’t yet been brought out for a group memorial service; yesterday evening this number had grown to twenty-­eight, when two families had appeared and each identified a corpse. These were then placed in coffins, with a necessarily hasty and improvised version of the usual rites. After making a note of their names and coffin numbers in your ledger, you added ‘group memorial service’ in parentheses; Jin-su had asked you to make a clear record of which coffins had already gone through the service, to prevent the same ones being brought out twice. You’d wanted to go and watch, just this one time, but he told you to stay at the gym.

 

Reference:

 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/13/human-acts-han-kang-review-south-korea