Guest
India, Empire and the First World War Santanu Das and Navtej Sarna in conversation with David Olusoga Santanu Das’s India, Empire, and First World War Culture recovers the sensuous experience of combatants, non-combatants and civilians from undivided India in the 1914–1918 conflict and their socio-cultural, visual, and literary worlds. Das draws on a variety of fresh, unusual sources - objects, images, rumours, street pamphlets, letters, diaries, sound recordings, folk songs, testimonies, poetry, essays, and fiction - to produce the first cultural and literary history, moving from recruitment tactics in villages through sepoy traces and feelings in battlefields, hospitals, and POW camps to post-war reflections on Europe and empire. Combining archival excavation in different countries across several continents with investigative readings of Gandhi, Kipling, Iqbal, Naidu, Nazrul, Tagore, and Anand, Das unravels the worlds of sepoys and labourers, men and women, nationalists, artists, and intellectuals, trying to make sense of home and the world in times of war. Author and former diplomat Navtej Sarna’s several works of fiction and non-fiction include The Exile - a novel based on the life of Maharaja Duleep Singh, Indians at Herod's Gate and the short story collection Winter Evenings. His recent historical novel, Crimson Spring, brings to life the horrors of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 as well as the experience of Punjabi soldiers during the First World War. In conversation with broadcaster and historian David Olusoga Santanu Das is Professor of Modern Literature and Culture and Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford. His latest book India, Empire and First World War Culture: Writings, Images, Songs, published with Cambridge University Press, won the Hindu Non-Fiction Prize, the ESSE Book Award, and the Coomaraswamy Award in the US in 2020. He is currently writing on the sea and editing the Oxford Book of Empire and War Navtej Sarna has been a professional diplomat for nearly four decades and was India’s Ambassador to the United States, High Commissioner to the UK, Ambassador to Israel, and Secretary at the Foreign Ministry. He has recently authored the novel Crimson Spring. His earlier books include the novels The Exile and We Weren’t Lovers Like That, the short story collection Winter Evenings, and several works of non-fiction David Olusoga is a British-Nigerian historian, author, presenter and BAFTA-winning filmmaker. He is a Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester and writes for The Observer, The Guardian, and The New Statesman. Olusoga has written seven books, including the award-winning books Black & British: A Forgotten History and The World’s War. Follow us on – Website - Facebook - YouTube - Instagram - Twitter - Buy Books From Amazon - Contribution - #author #writer #story #novel #publishing #literature #literaturelovers #books #booksummary #jaipurliteraturefestival #jaipurliteraturefestival2023
