Naveen Akhund, Author at Pippa Rann Books & Media

Film journalist Bhawana Somaaya’s tribute to Karachi, a city like no other.

‘When the family is together, nothing is difficult.’ This is the underlying theme of Bollywood film journalist Bhawana Somaaya’s heart rending memoir ‘Farewell Karachi.’ I first came across this book through an Instagram post and I’m not embarrassed to admit that the blurbs on the front cover by Hrithik Roshan, Shobhaa De and Karan Johar […]

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Arundhati Roy’s fiction. Life and Love in the Margins

Book Reviews, Columns / Naveen Akhund

Arundhati Roy was recently awarded the PEN Pinter Prize 2024. At the same time, several powerful individuals in her home country called for her to be convicted under anti-terror legislation. The charge? A comment in 2010 during a conference where Roy stated that Kashmir was never an integral part of India. So is Roy a

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Review of Hidden Fires by Sairish Hussain

Book Reviews / Naveen Akhund

A heartwarming and sensitive portrayal of a growing bond between Yusuf, a British Pakistani grandfather, and his mixed heritage teenage granddaughter, Rubi, Sairish Hussain’s second novel Hidden Fires highlights the importance of preserving the histories of South Asia’s most tragedy ridden generation. ‘This whole thing is far from over. It’s been dormant since 1947 and

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Review of Rosarita by Anita Desai

Book Reviews / Naveen Akhund

My first introduction to Anita Desai’s work was as a ten-year-old borrowing books from my school library over the summer holidays. ‘The Village by the Sea’ was an intriguing title and I, having lived near the Arabian Sea for all of my childhood, immediately gravitated towards the book. This was a time when English fiction

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The Witch In the Peepul Tree

Columns / Naveen Akhund

A genre-bending portrayal of family dynamics, societal wealth distribution and caste politics in postcolonial India. It is 1950 and Mewar is reeling from the aftereffects of Partition and the departure of the British. On the day of Makar Sankranti, teenaged beauty Sanaz, the esteemed Dada Bhai’s daughter, is found dead. To add perplexity to the

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Khushwant Singh Literary Festival

Columns / Naveen Akhund

Khushwant Singh is a household name for those in the Indo-Pak literary sphere. The Khushwant Singh Literary Festival ran for its 6th session in June 2024 with the theme ‘Heal The World’. Mr Fakir Aijazuddin OBE, a renowned Pakistani art historian and curator of Sikh Art, paid tribute to his friend Khushwant Singh, describing their

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