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(posted earlier on the Titan Books site, here) It’s amazing that superheroes are still popular, because our concerns as a species have become terrifyingly small. Earlier generations used to really believe in things; gods, life in outer space waiting to greet or annihilate us, nuclear bombs, unknown monsters, evil, identikit foreigners. It was an easier … Continue reading
Here‘s a GRRM piece I wrote for the Sunday Guardian.
Cover story on Indian fantasy in The Week. National newsmagazine, people. Walls, writing on . See, now we actually exist.
If you’re interested in comics at all, you’re probably aware that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are both going to make movies based on the adventures of Tintin, India’s favourite comicbook detective. And if not, well, I just told you, so now you know. What’s most intriguing about these films is the new technology they’re … Continue reading
Apologies for dumping this on the main page now that I have an Articles section, but cant seem to find the link on the HT site Last month, Persepolis, an animated film based on the books by Iranian comics writer/artist and irregular New York Times columnist Marjane Satrapi, was nominated for the Palm d’Or and … Continue reading
God’s been saving the Queen, all right. Remarkably well-preserved at 80, the world’s best-known reigning monarch (the King of Pop has clearly abdicated) celebrated her birthday recently with much pomp and splendour. The media were warm and fuzzy as usual, reporting extensively on such thrilling moments as the Queen’s lunch with 99 ‘exact twins’, people … Continue reading
JK Rowling recently won more points among parents and children worldwide when she spoke out angrily on her website about the widespread idolization of ‘empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones’ with ‘oversized handbags and rat-sized dogs’ – no, not rival authors, but models and other celebrities with fake fast metabolisms and real eating disorders, the patron saints … Continue reading
As soon as the news of Sachin Tendulkar’s shoulder injury hit the airwaves, I got a phone call from a friend, an ardent cricket fan and conspiracy theorist. ‘It’s all a conspiracy,’ he declared, predictably. ‘It’s because they booed him in Bombay. There’s no injury. This is some image consultant’s doing. He needs to lie … Continue reading
Last week, Neil Clark, curator of paleontology at the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, put forward a startling theory to the British press – that the Loch Ness monster, best loved and most merchandised of all the world’s mysterious monsters, was actually a submerged, bathing Indian circus elephant, a performer from Bertram Mills’ travelling circus, which … Continue reading
On the 1st of January this year, the Sunday Times revealed the results of an (excuse the bad pun) undercover operation – they sent typedmanuscripts of the opening chapters of two Booker-winning novels to leading publishers and agents in the UK disguised as works by unknown, aspiring authors, and writhed in glee as one after … Continue reading
Samit Basu 