Permanent Black

When Permanent Black signed on this book, the agreement was that it would include around 40-50 illustrations. In print, the book will have more than 200. How come? The reason is that the author is very persuasive. And he is very persuasive because he is both incredibly knowledgeable about his area of specialization, Telugu cinema, as well as enthusiastic about it to the point of being nuts. Facing a book which came in with four times the number of illustrations agreed to in the contract, it was surprisingly easy all the same for Permanent Black to say 'to hell with the agreement' because there is something quite special about this author's involvement in his subject. He has dug out an incredible array of songbook covers, film posters, and newspaper adverts from the most obscure and unknown private sources, and they are of immense value to his history. The other thing about this book is that you don't need to be a Film Studies wallah to follow it. Srini...

Admirers of Kathryn Hansen's  Kathryn in Austin, Texas many contributions towards understanding North Indian culture, literature, and theatre will want to read this interview . It provides an excellent synoptic view of a scholar who has devoted a large part of her life to a deeply empathetic engagement with things Indian. Not many know that she played the sitar and became, when she first came to India, a friend of Nikhil Banerjee. Permanent Black was privileged to be approached by her to publish STAGES OF LIFE: INDIAN THEATRE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES (2011) , one of the most accessible, readable, and enthralling books on our list. In this she both contextualizes four important autobiographies by four theatre personalities from the days of the Parsi theatre, and translates all four from Hindustani/Gujarati into excellent contemporary English. Books by heavyweight scholars can seem intimidating; this isn't one of those. Kathryn Hansen entices you into the Bombay and Calcutta and ...