Books - INVERSE JOURNAL

Jahnamukh Panun Panun Naar: Mohiuddin’s Radical Indictment of Secular Democracy, Tyranny, Corruption, and Complicity — A Book Review by Haroon Lone

Sep 14, 2024

Haroon Lone presents an extensive review of late Akhter Mohiuddin’s novel Jahnamukh Panun Panun Naar, translated as “One’s Own Hell.” Lone’s review remains consistently loyal to the many critiques that unfold within its pages that hold a mirror to the societal and political landscapes of Kasheer (Kashmir in English), which are relevant to times past and present. The reviewer deftly explores how the novel’s intricate narrative structure and coded characters become powerful tools for political critique, allowing readers to confront the unsettling realities of oppression and complicity in their own societies. While deeply entrenched in these realities that have shaped the historical trajectory of Kashmir and its peoples, the review, much like the novel, has the potential to examine the maladies that plague other societies—where authoritarianism, tyranny, and corruption thrive under the guise of democracy, remaining uncontested and beyond critical scrutiny.

Book Review of Alejandro Zambra’s “Chilean Poet” (Granta Books, 2022) — by Dr. Chaandreyi Mukherjee

lejandro Zambra’s works have consistently brought contemporary Latin American writing to the forefront of critical thinking. He belongs to a new group of Chilean writers who have been born and brought up during the harrowing dictatorial regime of...

Hospital — An Excerpt from Freny Manecksha’s “Flaming Forest, Wounded Valley” (Speaking Tiger, 2022)

Sarkari Militants Target Medical Communityhe process of directly targeting the medical community began in the latter half of the 1990s with the Indian State deploying Ikhwanis, the ‘sarkari’ militants, to unleash unparalleled savagery. There was no...

Tending a Bonsai or How to Read a Translated Text without Knowing the Original — by Mubashir Karim

n the end Julio meanders frantically in a taxi that moves through places, while Emilia, this time true to her character as dead, continues to remain dead, probably as a dismembered body, probably in a coffin-shaped automobile that scoots through...

When the Light Dawned by Somnath Zutshi — A Book Excerpt from The Greatest Kashmiri Short Stories Ever Told (trans. Neerja Mattoo, Aleph, 2022)

When the Light Dawned Somnath Zutshihowers of snow had been falling for two days now, with no break at all. If one looked up to the sky one could see nothing but insect-like small flakes descending, dancing, and twirling to the ground. But if one...

Understanding Kant’s Duty-Based Ethics — by Faizan Akbar

Introductionmmanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher who is considered the father of modern liberal ethics1 and occupies a very important place in the canon of western philosophy. Kant wrote extensively, covering a wide range of areas like...

Sanjeev Sethi’s Bleb: Deceivingly Focussed Yet Ruefully Discreet — A Review by Dr. Sapna Dogra

Dr. Sapna Dogra reviews Sanjeev Sethi’s concise book of poems “Bleb” (Hybriddreich, 2021). In her short review, the academic excavates important aspects of the poet’s recent work, while discussing the significance of this “Wee Book of Wee Poems” through a critical engagement that is both concise and precise.

Books and Songs That Carried Us Through 2021 — by Inverse Contributors

As we come to the end of this difficult year and enter the new one, Inverse Journal has asked its contributors to participate in a collective piece where they share—with our readers and their fellow contributors—the one book and/or the one song that stayed with them throughout the year or during a considerable part of it. Below are entries from some of our contributors who responded to the online survey and shared their picks for this 2021 as it passes by. In a human world where catastrophe and devastation also wreak their havoc on meaning-making and signification, one imagines that books and songs are imbued with a restorative and restructuring power—with both operating within and outside of human time. It with this thought in mind that Inverse Journal presents a limited selection of such books and songs curated and picked by some of the same contributors who make this space possible.

A Movement in Kashmir’s Historiography: Reviewing Khalid Bashir’s Kashmir: Looking Back in Time — Dr. Javid Ahmad Ahanger

Dr. Javid Ahmad Ahanger reviews Khalid Bashir Ahmad’s “Kashmir: Looking Back in Time (Politics, Culture, History)” (Atlantic, 2021) situating the author’s work within a larger tradition of historiography. In the process, Dr. Ahanger evaluates Bashir’s book for the value it adds to Kashmiri scholarship during contemporary times while visiting some of the core topics and ideas that the text unveils or that had not been considered previously with the type of historical analysis it brings to fore.

BOOK EXCERPT: Resisting Disappearance: Military Occupation & Women’s Activism in Kashmir (Zubaan, 2020) — by Ather Zia

Inverse Journal presents an excerpt from the first chapter (“The Politics of Mourning”) of Resisting Disappearance: Military Occupation & Women’s Activism in Kashmir (Zubaan, 2020) by Ather Zia. These selections are part of a book produced from the combination of rigorous academic research and a decade of robust fieldwork coupled with the capacity to present ethnography through a poetic language that the text internally innovates upon.

Along with a poem at end of the book’s introduction, Inverse Journal has included an independently curated visual bibliography with links and media relevant to the book and its author.

WHO KILLED MY SON: The Wounded Spectators of the 1990s — An Excerpt from Freny Manecksha’s Behold, I Shine: Narratives of Kashmir’s Women and Children (Rupa Publications, 2017)

Inverse Journal presents Chapter 3 of Freny Manecksha’s seminal text on the women and children of Kashmir, that as much as a book is also a map of human stories bearing witness to suffering, struggle, perseverance, and hope. Inverse Journal has included a visual bibliography on articles, reviews and media relevant to the book and its author. This excerpt from Behold, I Shine: Narratives of Kashmir’s Women and Children (2017) is published in our Books section with permission from its author and by courtesy of the book’s publisher, Rupa Publications.

Rumours of Spring – A Commentary by Tabish Rafiq Mir

Originally published on his personal blog, Tabish Rafiq Mir shares with us a timely review (that is more of an inspired response) to Farah Bashir’s “Rumours of Spring” (Harper Collins, 2021). In not sticking to conventions, Tabish divides his response into eleven sections, each of which provide new insights to contextualize the importance of Bashir’s text situated within a broader history. Writing such as this reminds of the type of engagement dedicated readers will have with memoirs, reminding us that reading a memoir entails entering the space of voyage within time and place, in the contours of what is recollected and remembered. Such remembrance, as personal as it may be, is for many a collective one, making Farah Bashir’s memoir as relatable as the commentary in response that Tabish Rafiq Mir is inspired to put on paper. From a personal narration, the history of an entire peoples can be retrieved, such that personal and collective experience are revealed to be intertwined, as is customary with the genre. However, in this mode, Bashir’s text stands out as an abstraction that allows for a necessary distance required to reflect and revisit the everyday lived reality of Kashmir over the last decades, while simultaneously remaining immersed in that concrete world through its honest narration that requires no embellishments. The result is an elaborate reminder for readers to never allow for the continued normalization of an imposed state that not only shaped but confined Kashmir’s collective memory in very specific and strategic ways. Whether we carry our memories or whether our memories carry us is perhaps indistinguishable when it comes to Bashir’s book, especially when subjective experience is detailed with such authenticity that it verbalizes that which many others rendered speechless or exiled from expression have gone through. With each word measured, Tabish’s commentary sheds light on this and many other aspects of Farah’s memoir, establishing it as one of the most significant books within its genre to have arrived till date. Inverse Journal has included an independently curated list of links relevant to the book and its author.

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