Aatish Taseer, "The Way Things Were"

In his third novel, Taseer, author of the memoir Stranger to History and two previous novels, Noon and The Temple-Goers, expands on some of the themes in his widely-read Sunday New York Times article, “How English Ruined Indian Literature.” The story opens with the death of a Sanskrit scholar and traces the legacy Toby left his son, who also studies the ancient language. Drawing his title from a loose translation of “itihasa,” the Sanskrit for “history,” the narrative follows four decades of Indian and Pakistani history, intertwining public events with their deep and lasting impact on one family. Taseer is in conversation with Sadanand Dhume, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a South Asia columnist for the Wall Street Journal.

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