|
While the world grapples with another crisis, for many of us readers, comfort lies between the pages of a book. While books allow us to escape to a different reality, for some it helps to come to grips with upending events. In today’s world, we want to remind ourselves that there have been many wars—and that every war has many narratives. We’ve put together a collection of books that help us grapple with this idea.
If you were born in the 80s, you might have had a glossy copy of ‘Folktales from the Soviet Union’ standing tall in your bookshelf. From the 1970s, Indian children read hundreds of fairy tales, science fiction, and contemporary adventure stories from the Soviet Union. These were available to them in English translation and in many vernacular languages. Diverse in content, and featuring startling, colourful art, these books were commonplace in all Indian bookstores. Tapping into India’s love for Soviet literature, this is an exhaustive guide by Giedre Janeviciute and V Geetha—of the history of the children’s publishing industry of the Soviet and India’s role in the same. It is also a gentle nudge to all readers to look at a history of children’s books that goes beyond the USA and the UK. With an extensive archive of images, history, research, and analysis, this treasure trove of a book from Tara Books is also a celebration of the global impact of the Soviet children’s picture book.
Joe Sacco is known for ‘cartoon journalism’ or using graphic novels to tell journalistic stories. This book is a collection of war stories: "When Good Bombs Happen to Bad People," a history of aerial bombing that specifically targets civilian populations; "More Women, More Children, More Quickly," in which Sacco relates his mother's harrowing experiences during World War II in Malta; and, most personally "How I Loved the War," Sacco's impassioned but sardonic reflection on the Gulf War, the surrounding propaganda and media circus, and his own ambivalent feelings as both a spectator and commentator.
This witty yet deeply moving tale of Charlotte Hobson's year travelling around Russia takes us to the heart of a country that we are continually interested in, yet struggle to understand. Hobson's characters are wonderfully quixotic. She drinks with derelicts, hangs out with gypsies, and watches investigators go about the grim business of exhuming purge victims and giving them the Christian burial they have been denied for seventy years. This book is a great mixture of history and whimsical fun.
This is a powerful work of oral history on the Chernobyl disaster. Through the hundreds of people she has interviewed for this book, Svetlana Alexievich brings to life the many voices of despair, death, anguish, and the terrifying future of nuclear war.
This book by Stefan Berger and Bill Niven questions history's objectivity. How does memory impact the writing of history, and does that become what we consider the truth? This is a thoughtful exploration of collective memory and oral narratives across time.
While we may seek comfort in thinking that the war is happening many miles away from us, this book is a good reminder of the stories that need to be heard from our own soil—stories of strife, rebellion, struggle for identity, land and the war within. This is the unforgettable memoir of Farah Bashir's adolescence in Srinagar in the 1990s. Bashir recounts life with her dear grandmother, close family and friends over seasonal food, shifting culture, and disappearing adults, as violence suddenly envelops the Kashmir valley.
This book is a collection of essays and articles compiled by Blackneck Books, an imprint of TibetWrites, which brings to us the creative work of Tibetans, whether in memoirs, novels, or poetry. These writings span across decades, bringing us a glimpse of the Tibetan struggle for freedom.
Award-winning journalist Rohini Mohan’s reportage is an evocative account of the many lives that remain in shambles in the aftermath of the three-decade long civil war in Sri Lanka that instilled deep fear and hate among millions in the multi-ethnic country. In 2009, when the army finally defeated the Tamil Tigers guerrillas, more than 40,000 people died, including many civilians. But what became of the people who managed to survive? This is a searing account of three lives caught up in the devastation and shows how war continues long after the cessation of hostilities. Wars may end, but is there ever an end to the war within us?
|
