Interactives books of the yearyearbook of the Year: Our Picks

1: Do muslim Muslim women Women need Need Ssaving?- Laila Abu-lugod

In her book, do muslim women need saving?, lLaila abu Abu lugodh Lugodh argues
that in the aftermath of the 9\11, the paradigm of rescuing muslim Muslim women
from the oppressive, unprogressive and pre-modern muslim lands has procured
momentum as an undeniable necessity. The propulsion for doing thisThis wellresearched work stemmed predominantly from is the result of her Laila Abu
Lugodhs encounters as an ethnographer, who interviewed an array ofof her
interaction with muslim Muslim women throughout her academic career. The
women she interviewed narrated their own stories that challenged dominant power
discourcesdiscourses which characterizes cultures through using social scientific
generalizations. Throughout this book, laila Laila focuses her attentiontries to
deconstruct popular portrayals of Mmuslim women by what she calls writing
against culture, by which she ventures to usher in forces and influence other than
culture to the foremeans .
The book raises crucial questions towards about secular\religious power
discourcesdiscourses that violently negate the diversity of muslimMuslim women
and camouflage them under the category of a homogenous womenof homogenous
women.
2: Looking for Palestine: Growing up confused Confused in an arabArab-american
American familyFamily- a memoireMemoir- Najla Said
It is unthinkable to read najlas Najila Saids memoire without remembering the
legendary Edward saidis less an autobiography of an Arab-American theatre actress
than a biography of her legendary father Edward Said., who, though I havent met
him, is a fatherly figure for me, the only intellectual with whom I am attached
emotionally. It is a story of a father and his family. To many, as najla says, Edward is
a post-colonial intellectual, while for others he is an icon of Palestinian freedom
struggle, but for her me he is just a father. Najla narrates that she did not come to
terms with the impact and power her fathers writings had until she was older. She
realized that life of her father was more discrete than the one he led at home.
The book is also about being a self-hatred hating arab. In her early childhood, she
continued to hear from her surroundings that arabsArabs are bad people, who
eagerly wait to get a chance to be exploded themselves on a huge crowd. Najla
tries hard to struggle with this representation and tries to understand it with the
reality that she faces. It had unavoidable consequences for her in terms of how she
saw herself, with indelible and hurtful results. Najla says that she spent a long
period of her life trying to answer the question; what does it mean to be an
arabArab- Palestinian- American? This is a memoir of the search for an identity,
narrated with in a poetic language .prose.

3: Narcopolis Jeet Tayyil

Jeet tayyils Tayyils scintillating inception first novel tries to destabilizes and
challenges the elite literary tradition of Indian novels. This novelNarcopolis tells the
story of marginalized people, whom the middle classs cast and purity fails to
comprehend as subjects with political agency. It narrates the story of drugs, sex,
death, perversion, addiction and love. It does have more in common in its subject
matter with the work of William.s.burrogs Burrogs than with with the urban middle
class soap dramas concocted by the likes of Chetan Bhagat the work of indias
chethan like bullshit story tellers ( let me spare amithav ghosh from crucification).
Jeet tayyil Tayyil has narrated a superb depiction of an alluring and accursed
generation whom our nation-state regards as impure. narcopolis Narcopolis
illustrates the development of a prominent and shattered metropolis around people
lost in alleyways of drug trafficking.
In the beginning of the novel, the narrator arrives from newyork to the citys
underworld, specifically an opium den and attached brothel. It is the Bombay in the
1970s. there we happen to encounter a lot ofof the Novel is peopled by a motley
crowd charactersdrawn from various arenas, including dimpleDimple, the eunuch
who makes pipes in the den; Rumi, the salary man and husband whose addiction is
violence; newton Newton Xavier, the celebrated painter; mrMr .Llee, the
chineeseChinese refugee and business man; and a cast of poets , sexual workers,
pimps and gangsters.
A different kind of Bombay reveals with the development of the novel. Heroin from
Pakistan begins to replace opium and citys poverty becomes more rapid. Violence
of the city starts to affect the lives of vendors. Yet dimple, in spite of the
desolateness of her surroundings, goes on with the search for beauty in the movies,
pulp magazins, church, and in a new burka-wearing identity.
Finally, the narrator reaches back in 2004 to find a very different Bombay. Those he
had acquainted with are no more now, but the agony he identifies for them and the
city is unveiled. Undeniably, Jeet tayyils extremely lyrical and surreal narrative will
make sure a literary voyage with the narrator.
4: The darker Darker side Side of modernityModernity\ Walter Mignalo
In his brilliant book, the darker side of western modernity, wWalter mignalo argues
says that when Europeans set foot in Americas and colonized it, coloniality unfolded
as a new structure of power. Thus, western civilization and modernity came in to
being as a finality of historical time. It was then that Europe became the centre of
the world. Mignalo characterizes coloniality as the darker side of western modernity.
fromFrom the period of renaissance, white men and institutions had controlled it. It
was Christian theology that had driven them. Mignalo points out that this sequence
of coloniality is facing its end. In the early twenty-first century, post-colonial nation

states are faced with a big challenge; that is ,facing the big challenge of
decoloniality. Mignalo says that decoloniality is a revolutionary process which
requires epistemological endeavours that negate modern power structures and
imagine a global future where no one speaks the language of power and
domination.
5: Capital in the 21st century Thomas Piketty
Thomas pikettyPiketty, a French economist, has penned a book titled capital. He
argues for progressive taxation and a global wealth tax as the only way to challenge
the inclination towards the creation of what pikkety Pikkety calls a patrimonial form
of capitalism. He says that the main features of capitalism are inequalities of
wealth and income. He explains how social inequality of wealth and income
unfolded over the last two centuries, with specific stress on the role of wealth. He
disrupts the popular view that liberal economy unfurls the wealth around and that it
is the essential stockade for the shielding of individual liberties and freedoms. He
then shows that liberal economy constructs undemocratic oligarchies.
undoubtedlyUndoubtedly, pikettys Pikettys powerful argument has caused liberal
outrage worldwide.