Knife is Salman Rushdie’s account of how he narrowly survived an attempt on his life in August 2022, in which he lost his right eye and partial use of his left hand. The attack ironically came when Rushdie was delivering a lecture on “the creation in America of safe spaces for writers from elsewhere”, at… Continue reading In Knife, Salman Rushdie confronts a world where liberal principles like free speech are old-fashioned
India’s government, led by prime minister Narendra Modi, implemented the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in March 2024. Opponents of the law — which fast-tracks citizenship for undocumented, non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan — decry the ways in which it discriminates against Muslims. As they did when the law was passed in 2019,… Continue reading Indian protesters look to poetic tradition to resist Modi’s Hindu nationalism
Katabasis — “a going down” — etymology: καταβαίνειν, Greek, “to descend”, from “κατα”, down, and “βαίνω”, I go. This essay deals with the question of how classical literary elements and mythology can be utilised in a way which enhances the critical and provocative in poetry which seeks to cut ties with tradition, in what at… Continue reading Classical katabasis in Allen Ginsberg’s Howl
