Sunil Sharma |
This Setu is special!
Celeb writers Agron Shele and Rob Harle join us as editors from this month onwards.
They will be selecting content from their respective geographies and making the e-zine a better literary and cultural space. We welcome both the distinguished authors and look forward to a productive and professional relationship in coming months.
You can also expect greater diversity and plurality in terms of reading and viewing material from varied geo and artistic locations; works that are known to have their own unique sensibilities and experiences of time-space continuum, in a way, rare verbal and visual artifacts handpicked by these two editors who are sensitive artists at heart and by practice.
Setu is going to crackle with synergies in future, thanks to their sincere efforts to make the journal worth your time!
We also have John Thieme with us in this issue. The globally-respected critic is featured as the Author of the Month. There is a special essay on partnership strategies and world literatures in English by him and a piece on why does he write. These make an interesting reading, reading that is both emancipatory and enlightening in effect on the consciousness of the recipient. Only a master could write such stuff in a market dominated by formulaic writing and fantasy promoted big by the profit-seeking machinery of glib sales talk and sexy packaging, deployed by a consumerist society. John resists such flattening forces through his works and styles by opening up new vistas and offering fresh insights through consistent engagement with some of the enduring foundational ideas of democracy and liberal humanism, increasingly under threat these days, in their best and most popular addresses worldwide.
In this issue, Agron Shele has curated a section on writings from Europe and other Western locations---poetry that brings in a singular texture and reality through images and linguistic finesse. These writings are important for experiencing the world from a grid which is not Anglo-Franco-American in its orientation and therefore, counts a lot in defying its hegemonic power and deterministic view-point. You can call them alternative narratives or poetics of cognizing the surroundings in different idioms.
Rob Harle often does a photo- doc on places and people in a successful manner. His photo-essay is a firm testimony to that unusual talent of this venerable sculptor-painter-thinker-poet- writer-critic--- deftly capturing locals in words, images and visuals via photography; the camera being another medium and passion of long standing.
Then there are competent translations of poetry by noted poets Jaydeep Sarangi and Chandra Mouli, and, the select research papers address some urgent contemporary concerns and issues by critics of great caliber and further promise, literary interview by the Greek poet Roula Pollard, and the Immortal---Gogol.
Besides that, you will find the other regular columns, the source of great delight to our patrons and well-wishers.
As usual, an eclectic feast!
Please, enjoy!
Editor, Setu, English
Yes Sir, your editorial is a fantastic read.And Setu posits alternative narratives and global voices against the the stale and consumer driven demands of culture.
ReplyDeleteHappy to be associated with you.
Welcome Agron Shele n Rob Harle onboard Setu! Their presence will doubtlessly make the already sumptuous journal more diversified n pluralistic...All the best!
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