Posts by: lapata

A Manifesto for the Age of Orange

We need new metaphors. Many of us will feel tempted in the coming years to...

What is Aleppo?

  What is Aleppo? Aleppo is a city in Syria. Aleppo is a city near-destroyed...

Poetry Management

[Shubham Shree's irreverent Hindi poem "Poetry Management" has been awarded the 2016 Bharat Bhushan Agrawal...

There is a One-Eyed Man in the House

(Recently, I was asked to write something about translation for The Byword, a new journal...

Lessons Learned: Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph, in memoriam

Life Lessons [Professors Susanne and Lloyd Rudolph, University of Chicago professors, brilliant political economists of...

The Conditional World of the Refugee

    [A guest post by Zirwat Chowdhury] What would little Aylan have become if...

Yeh Dosti

Friend break-ups are usually painful, lonely affairs. But on September 13, 2015, a young man...

Death is Iconic

This summer, Israel bombarded the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of civilians, bombing schools and hospitals,...

There's something about Rats

My new interview with Amitava Kumar about his book A Matter of Rats, out from...

Announcing my new novel, Taste

Excited to announce that my new novel, Taste, will be out from Foxhead Books in...

The Story of Aath Din

Prashansa Taneja is currently working on a translation of Upendranath Ashk's memoir of his supposed...

Taking Liberties

Here's a new interview with me about my translations of Upendranath Ashk's short stories compiled...

Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose

Ayesha Jalal, The Pity of Partition: Manto's Life, Times, and Work across the India-Pakistan Divide....

Zabardast Ashk

About seventeen years ago, I started a project translating a collection of the Hindi author...

Call for Papers on Aesthetics and Partition

Tentative title: The sentimental and the melodramatic: exploring Partition aesthetics We seek essays for a...

The 2012 Dirty Dozen

For your reading pleasure, a list of our favorite books from 2012--books that we read...

Reviews sheviews

1. All Hail Salman Rushdie. All Hail Joseph Anton. At times, when she was reading...

Neo Orientalism is the New Orientalism

A snippet from my new Bookslut column by me in which I review Marina Warner's...

In and out of Kingdoms

[A guest post by Tipu Sultan] Once, I Was An Oil Drop I was taught...

The Journey of Everywoman

I. Years ago, while writing my dissertation, I stepped out one evening to one of...

Read, Think, Burn (repeat as necessary)

My review of Habibi is out in The Sunday Guardian today. It was originally longer....

The Little Book of Terror launch and art opening in Philadelphia

This Friday (February 3rd) come to my book launch and art opening in Philadelphia at...

Dada Sahib Painted Chacha Ji

Sepoy insists that I share this painting of Nehru by my grandfather. He also has...

Dada Sahib at the Jama Masjid

Screedery

I have a review of Granta's ten years post-9/11 issue up on The Sunday Guardian...

That Soot-Besmirched Late Afternoon

I have a new piece up at Caravan on Yashpal's great Partition novel, Jhootha Sach....

The Best of All Possible Care

One thing that the First World really gets right is good dental care. The more...

Coming very, very soon...

Dic Lit

I. A Terribly Attractive Man I probably first heard the name Qaddafi on the radio,...

Funny Face

You fill the air with smiles For miles and miles and miles Though you're no...

Political Animal

My new show, Political Animal, opens in White River Junction, VT, at the Main Street...

Flash Fiction Contest: The Winner!

Our hardworking judge, the illustrious Kuzhali Manickavel, has pored long and hard over all the...

Adda Post

For my recent column on Bookslut, I approached the worrisome task of writing about the...

Interior Landscapes

My new column is up at Bookslut. It was with some trepidation that I approached...

It's a Contest!

Dear Readers, Chapati Mystery is launching a new flash fiction contest, which might just happen...

Teju Cole's Open City

I also have a review out today on Bookslut of long-time CM reader Teju Cole's...

The Blaftness of Blaft

Following my interviews with Blafters Rakesh Khanna, Pritham K. Chakravarthy and Kuzhali Manickavel, my review...

Some of us have wings: a conversation with illustrious flash fictionista Kuzhali Manickavel

Everybody knows who Yara Sofia is in Puerto Rico. And if you don't, then sorry...

A Big Leg of Mutton, or: How to Consume and Translate Tamil Pulp Fiction

My review of a whole raft of Blaft publications comes out in the February issue...

In Search of Spiraling Time

My new column on translation, transcreation and Qurratulain Hyder's two English renderings of her novels...

Ten Best Books of 2010

In December, it is the custom of taste-makers everywhere to create lists of the ten...

The War and Peace of Hindi Literature!

My new December column is up on Bookslut. There's so much more to say about...

Cocoonistan

My post for the November issue of Bookslut goes up today. Here it is below,...

Literary Striptease

"Translation for me stems from two different but interrelated impulses: a good text matures for...

Getting to Know You

My new column, a review of Granta 112 ("the Pakistan issue") is up on Bookslut....

Literary Travelers

I have a new column at Bookslut. The title of my column comes to you...

Little Green Men

Tennessee resident Gary Middleton worries that the mosque could house extremists. "It's just another mosque,...

From the Department of Unfinished Business

Some of you may be old enough to remember a letter to an academic journal...

Go buy this book now

In February, I posted a review of Amitava Kumar's novel Home Products. That self-same book,...

The Reluctant Feudalist

An essay by Daisy Rockwell. Har qatl di e jar zan zamin zar Three things...

Oscar, Wow!

Díaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007. I....

The Stay-at-Home Man

I've never really written anything outside of this house. I wrote a very thick Ph.D....

The Committee Has Met

Dear Mr. Nanga Fakir, We're writing to let you know that the Committee for the...

Book Buying in South Asia: call for submissions

Update: Deadline is one week from today-- Sunday, March 7, 2010 at 12 noon EST...

Flyover Country

The commercial would begin with a shot of a blue-green planet afloat in dark space....

Particularities of Partition II

[Acknowledgments: This paper was part of a conference panel; I want to thank my fantastic...

Particularities of Partition Literature I

[Sepoy notes: I have badgered Lapata to release some of her academic writings here on...

That Pleasant Prison Dream

No, I doubt I'd be that kind of father not rural not snow no quiet...

Botoxicles

How is it that it would not occur to a learned person that the theoretical...

I'll show you the life of the mind

This article has been making the rounds; I got it from a twittering Sepoy. I've...

On the disappointingness of great men

Her?

Lapatastic dot com

Thanks to Sepoy, my new website is up and running. The website currently displays only...

Exclusive Interview: Socks Clinton

There's been a lot of buzz surrounding the upcoming release of former First Cat Socks...

Season's Greetings

_______________________________________________________________________ A Happy Eid (and xmas, hannukah, kwanzaa, festivus) to all CM readers - may...

A-jad Asleep

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The Fur of a Lion

A manly public image can take a lot of work. Russian President Vladimir Putin's image...

Chapati Review: Wristcutters, A Love Story

(Suggested listening while reading this review: http://youtube.com/watch?v=grKaSsyvxZE">click here; don't bother to watch the clip, since...

Sunday Reading for the Decadent

The time has come to take Sepoy to task with regard to his blanket condemnation...

The Boy Who Got Tired of Posing

Those of you in the Toronto area should check out an interesting new show by...

O Mere Humsafar

The White House maintains a special website for Barney. _____________________________________________________________________________

To Us

When President of South Korea visited with Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, Kim...

Let it be dainty in its food so that it shall be known as an Imperial dog by its fastidiousness

Thoughts on the Pekingese by Empress Dowager Cixi: Let the Lion Dog be small; let...

I've made a huge little mistake

The moral of this tale, my friends, is never use an acrylic-based varnish with watercolors....

Cha cha cha

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The Purr in Persian

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Aliens!

Aliens in America premiers tonight on the CW. Can someone tell me what that poor...

A-Jad aglitter

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Bush

Affliction with Little Dragons

Have you heard the good news? For those of us who may have lost hope--...

I am a horse.

As you can see, I am a magnificent horse. Proof of my magnificence lies in...

Chapati Review: Two Graphic Novels by Sarnath Banerjee

The Barn Owl's Wondrous Capers (Penguin India, 2007), Rs. 395 Corridor (Penguin India, 2004), $13.00...

buri nazar wale tera munh hara

A friend is about to embark on a long voyage to the end of the...

lolprofs!!1!!!11!!!

Slate has a brilliant piece on the lolcat meme that's sweeping the webternets these days...

Persepolis Hits the Red Carpet

Just what we've all been waiting for: the animated version of Persepolis is being screened...

Chapati Review: Four Books by Etgar Keret

The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God & Other Stories (Toby Press, 2004), $12.95....

Aliens in America!

Here's the madcap comedy we've all been waiting for: The CW's only new comedy, "Aliens...

Welcome to the AARP, Mr. Ben Laden!

Dear Mr. Ben Laden: Happy 50th birthday and welcome to the AARP! This is a...

Kal Penn on the Namesake

Many of us were surprised to learn that the actor who performed the role of...

Interview: Werner Horvath on his artwork, his collection of totalitarian paintings, his two ateliers and life as an artist-physician

Background: A few months ago I wrote about artistic depictions of Usama bin Laden. I...

Chapati Review: Palomar and Locas

Locas, by Jaime Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books, 2004), $49.95. Palomar, by Gilbert Hernandez (Fantagraphics Books, 2003),...

Cheney nearly goes beyond a smirk

In pictures of Cheney following the failed assassination attempt in Afghanistan, he seems to be...

Zulfi Bhutto was a pretty interesting guy...

...so I went ahead and made a picture of him. Well, three, actually. Here they...

David B.'s "A Bomb in the Family"

Sepoy recently forwarded me this fantastic translation of David B.'s short comic "A Bomb in...

The One-Eyed Warrior

I painted this portrait of Mullah Omar a few months ago, probably around the 9/11...

We Heart OBaMaRaMaMaMa

While CM was being hacked, some of your correspondents ended up getting hijacked by the...

TIME to come in for dinner

Time Magazine is hunched over its dad's computer in the den, learning how to personalize...

Barack Obama I: Style Icon

First in a series of posts on the junior senator from Illinois. Gary Cooper: Perfect....

Fauji Fashion Forward

"It takes a confident man to wear a military jacket complete with rows of brass...

Perma Smirk

It's election week and thinking about all our favorite politicians across the land keeps us...

Audacious Hopeful

Barack Obama appeared on NBC's Meet the Press today and acknowledged that he is now...

Two great tastes that go perfect together

Seems the Microlender Laureate is not just about microlending anymore. On November 7-8 Muhammad Yunus...

Chapati Review: Chicken with Plums

Chicken with Plums, by Marjane Satrapi (Pantheon Books, 2006), $16.95. _____________________________________________________________ Gadzooks! Every time you...

Cipher Alert

Probably the most disturbing thing about the Joan Didion article on Dick Cheney in the...

Dictators: They’re just like US!

[rejected by US Weekly] They're CRAZY about celebrities! Dictators can meet any celebrity they want....

Anti-Musharraf Conspirators Target Copy Editors at Simon & Schuster

Numerous reports have surfaced in Indian publications over the past 24 hours ridiculing the copy...

g∞g∞sh

Was I the last person to find out that the Iranian pop diva Googoosh is...

The Terrible Events of 7-Eleven

The Hindustan Times reported the latest on the Mumbai blasts yesterday with this catchy headline:...

War on Terror: Health Watch

The health of leaders is at no time more important than when there's a war...

Q: My GPA is horrible. Where can I buy a new one?

Today's NYT Magazine cover story by Michael Lewis, The Ballad of Big Mike, relates a...

Pretty in Pontiff

What the Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City needs are some bright colors...

Term-paper Crime Syndicates, Pt. II

Charles McGrath has written a part deux to his expose of term paper mills in...

UbL Art Round-up

On the occasion of this past Monday, I decided since everyone else was doing it,...

Term-paper Crime Syndicates Unveiled!

The NYT reported yesterday in a 'the internet might be destroying the fabric of our...