Group Portrait with Lady: Anjum Hasan's 'The Cosmopolitans' - Peril magazineA conversation about ‘The Cosmopolitans’, Anjum Hasan’s new novel, between Anjum and Rajorshi Chakraborti. ‘The Cosmopolitans’ is available at Xoum Books. Anjum Hasan is one of India’s leading contemporary writers, as well known for her novels as she is for her poems, stories, essays and literary criticism. Her books have been nominated for various awards, including the Man Asian Literary Prize, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, the Hindu Best Fiction Award and the Crossword Fiction Award. Two of her novels, Lunatic in my Head and Big Girl Now are already available in Australia, and we’re talking today about her new novel, The Cosmopolitans, published in September 2016 by Xoum Books. —— Before we begin, by way of a (very simple) introduction, The Cosmopolitans has at its heart the story of a woman who is devoted to noticing, looking for and cherishing experiences of awe and beauty, above all Read More »
Video: Isn't it Ironic? | Papercuts Vol 16Isn't it ironic? A meditation on the heroines of Anjum Hasan from Desi Writers' Lounge on Vimeo. Anjum Hasan, author of the novels Lunatic in My Head (2007), Neti, Neti (2009), a collection of short stories Difficult Pleasures (2012), and a book of poetry, Street on the Hill, is a creator of curiouser and curiouser heroines – from Firdaus, a middle-aged teacher in the middle of a thesis and a defunct relationship, to Sophie, a 20-something professional lost in a sea of Bangalorean yuppies. And then there's Qayenaat of The Cosmopolitans (2015), her most recent novel that explores the question of art and artists. She of the enchanting name, looking for meaning in a seemingly disenchanted world. Anjum places her in the context of the novel, "She is certainly liberated in many ways, she's not subject to any domestic or sexual restrictions. But she also feels alienated in 21st century India and this is what the novel is about in some ways, the question of the forms that this feeling of
