‘For more than forty years, Shashi Deshpande has—as a novelist, short story writer, essayist, memoirist, and public figure (in short, as a concerned and engaged citizen)—audibly contributed to the lively public debates on the role of the writer and writing in India and to an understanding of India’s contemporary social, literary, and political issues. She has not been reluctant to insert critical and dissenting notes into the public discourse of her nation. We are reminded constantly by the essays collected here that Deshpande is, first and foremost, a reader and a listener, actively and compassionately engaged in dialogue with others. The present collection invites its readers to enter that fascinating dialogue.’— from the introduction by Nancy E. Batty and Dieter Riemenschneider