The View from Here
Stories and Poems of Many Indias
Edited by Githa Hariharan and K. Satchidanandan
“The erudite Kannada scholar and critic D.R. Nagaraj wrote, ‘To read fiction is to know the fate of a society through its metaphors…’ The stories we share in this collection, most through the gift of translation, live through their metaphors; the metaphors the writers and translators hold in their hands like blessings—or timely curses…”
“Can poetry be political? The poems in this anthology tell us without doubt or apprehension: ‘Yes, poetically political if not politically political.’ Politics and poetry, in their real spirit, are two ways of telling the truth, and have been engaged—and continue to engage—in an endless conversation.”
During the seven years of its existence, from 2015 to 2022, the multilingual journal of culture Guftugu resolutely asserted India’s diversity against the attempt to force fit the country into a single mould. Selected from the twenty-two published issues of Guftugu, The View from Here arms us with prose and verse that bear powerful witness to the many Indias, past and present. Twenty stunning stories and more than fifty memorable poems are, together, unflinching in their insistence on diversity, dissent and, most of all, equality.
From Reviews
“…a resolute literary assertion against uniformity. Bringing together twenty stories and over fifty poems selected from the journal’s seven-year run (2015–2022), the collection offers a wide-angled view of India as it is lived, contested, and imagined—across languages, regions, and social locations. Refusing a singular narrative of the nation, it insists instead on plurality as both cultural fact and ethical necessity…
One of the anthology’s most striking features is its commitment to marginal perspectives. Minority voices, women’s experiences, and regional sensibilities are not framed as supplements to a mainstream narrative but as central to understanding the nation itself. Much of this writing reaches the reader through translation, which the collection treats not as a technical necessity but as a moral act. Translation here becomes a bridge across silos of language and power, allowing the many “Indias” to speak to one another…
Unflinching yet humane, The View from Here does not offer easy answers. What it offers instead is something more valuable: a chorus of voices that refuse erasure, and a literary space where diversity and dissent are not just defended, but practiced.”
Dumani Mail
“The View from Here is an eclectic bouquet of a variety of short stories and poems, in many Indian languages and in English translations, offering so many snapshots of India today… Apart from the gesture of social responsibility, the collection here stands on its own for its purely literary merit…”
Governance Now
“The View from Here is a much-needed compendium that celebrates the diversity of India in all its vibrant force. Picked by two Indian literary greats, these chosen verses and prose pieces reveal the real identity of India — a country that thrives on diversity, dissent, and equality.”
The Assam Tribune