Jun 7, 20094 minConversations in the darkTo be quite honest, Isaiah Berlin, the Oxford political philosopher, has always seemed a bit too formidable to read. And except for one...
Apr 5, 20093 minObsessions, destructive and redemptiveEvery once in a while — sometimes in a very long while — you come across a book that you wish would not finish. You savour each sentence,...
Mar 1, 20093 minRainy day storiesI reach once again for the 1925 collection of Hemingway’s stories In Our Time, which contains the short story that best encapsulates what...
Feb 1, 20095 minTormented by a restless breezeI do not believe that I am qualified to write on Faiz Ahmed Faiz. But the memory of a long ago Moscow afternoon tempts me. As a young...
Dec 7, 20084 minLong shadows of short storiesThe sky is a splattered sunset orange. The sun, a blazing hoop of fire, balances itself on the taught line of the horizon and then sinks...
Nov 2, 20085 minA slim selectionThere are times when the mind hesitates to enter a substantial book, aware that it will not be able to do justice. I thought I had sent...
Sep 7, 20084 minThe ExileWhen they fought each other for the throne after my father’s death, guns were mounted on those minarets and cannonballs flew over...
Aug 3, 20084 minInspiring a masterpieceNormally I only glance furtively at obituaries; one never knows what, or rather, whom one may find in those columns. But the other day,...
Jul 6, 20084 minCairo from a caféThe night throws its canopy gently over the Great Pyramids at Giza, as if it were reluctant to smudge their sharp silhouettes. And as the...