Latest Posts
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Why is Premchand not so widespread in the world like Anton Chekhov
If you look on any railway platform book stall, one picture exists invariantly—square face tapering down, big alive eyes, and sunken cheeks—that is Premchand. I am not saying that he is alone, but company figures are not constant, except for… Continue reading
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DEPTH OUTLASTS FASHION—FROM DICKENS TO KAFKA TO TODAY
What is better or worse for literature? The quiet tyranny of prizes or the constant demands of the market. Between both poles, the writer digs the hole like a mole. To be somewhere, or to be nowhere. Yes, the nowhere… Continue reading
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A Literature That Missed the Inner Turn
Both scenes were not synchronous, nor did they get along. I’m talking about Indian literary writings and the rest of global literature during the incipient phase of the 20th century. That era’s clock faced two world wars, and amid them,… Continue reading
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When Fiction Turns to Polemic: Llosa and the Price of Leaving the Temple
Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian Nobel Laureate, remained a towering figure in the literary world and died this year after a long literary life. I often wonder what his literary career might have been if he had avoided the journalistic… Continue reading
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The Weight of Conscience: Chekhov, Signatures, and the Writer’s Dilemma —Pragya’s Pen
Anton Chekhov once attended a dinner party in Continental Hotel to celebrate the anniversary of the abolition of serfdom. It was 19 February 1861. It was cold and livid weather outside, while in the hall, elite groups drank wine and… Continue reading
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WHEN WRTING IS BOTH VOCATION AND INVOCATION.
IN BETWEEN FLAME AND DISCIPLINE: A WRITER REFLECTS ON MURAKAMI’S CREED In Novelist as a vocation, Haruki Murakami lays out some important things about the writer’s attitude and routines. They are not similar but varied according to talents. If you… Continue reading
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In the Mind’s Theatre, Plot Dissolves”
From my ongoing reflections in “Pragya’s Pen and Perception”—a series on fiction, consciousness, and the dissolving boundaries of narrative. Where has the plot of fiction gone? I love Anton Chekhov and Guy De Maupassant’s fiction, they trailed forward in a… Continue reading
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Pragya’s Pen and Perception: “Moral Depth Without Preaching: Maupassant Against Tolstoy’s Hypocrisy”
I believe—‘Feeling, not intellect, is the true root of morality’—I am writing this essay from this point of view. In the literary world, morality is often mistaken for explicit preaching. Yet, true morality lies not in words but in how… Continue reading
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The Political Machinery of the Book Volga se Ganga (From Volga to Ganga)
“Great art is born only when knowledge is transfigured into feeling.” Volga se Ganga (From Volga to Ganga) by Rahul Sankrityayan—when I read it for the first time, I didn’t dive through or formulate it with my own eyes, which… Continue reading
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Focus on Technique—
When you grow older, when the inspiration is dismissed, you depend more on technique. If you don’t have that then everything collapses.There is no question that you write much more slowly, with much more care, and perhaps with less inspiration.… Continue reading
Pragya’s Pen 