In this volume, seven distinguished writers offer penetrating insights into the complexities of the subcontinent. Roderick MacFarquhar reflects on the legacy of Empire ad Partition, Ian Buruma considers secularism and Indian democracy, Pankaj Mishra remembers life in Benares, and Christopher de Bellaigue writes on a violent Bombay. But the volatile intersection of history, politics and culture on which they focus haunt Indian literature too, as shown in essays by Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen on Rabindranath Tagore, Hilary Mantel on Rohinton Mistry and Anita Desai on Indian women's writing.
