RAJI WRITES

“Cut. If not, shorten.” Anita Desai wrote these words in the margins of an early draft of her daughter Kiran Desai’s latest book,  The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny  (Hogarth, Sept 2025.) This was after the author had cut down a staggering 5000-page manuscript to a still-hefty 1000. Yet, at 688 pages, the published version is still too long, in this reader’s opinion.  Desai discussed the book, which has been shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, at a Sept. 21 event at  Keple

"Young historian" Manu S. Pillai is a historian and author whose work reimagines Indian history through vivid storytelling and...

It has been more than eight years since I set up this Raji Writes website, and since the first day, I have appreciated your readership....

Introducing Short Takes   There are so many things I want to write to you all about, and I never seem to have time. So, I decided I would...

A few weeks ago I was shocked to learn that a lovely person I first met decades ago in San Francisco, and again more recently at the...

What a fascinating city is New Orleans! The music, the food, the people, the history, the terrain, the trees, the bodies of water all...

Silicon Valley Reads chose as its 2025 theme “Empowering Humanity: Technology for a Better World.” I moderated a session presented by...

Radicalization of young men in a civil war How does a young man become “radicalized?” Subject him, his family, and his community to...

“Dictators are pretty good for landscaping and gardens,” quipped Shehan Karunatilaka, winner of the 2022 Booker Prize for his novel  The...

The South Asian Art and Literature Festival (SALA 2024) hosted three award-winning writers of Sri Lankan descent on September 28th at...

In the 2024 elections, California voters rejected a ballot measure which would have disallowed involuntary servitude in its prisons...

While you have read my book and theater reviews previously, Kite  is my first published work of fiction. It appears in Issue 14 of Gold...

The Offspring, 19 and a voter, wrote a piece for Ethnic Media Services on how the official position on Gaza influences young voters...

Dr. Shashi Tharoor, author, intellectual, United Nations alumnus, and currently Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala,...

Chef, writer and humanist extraordinaire Suvir Saran  came to his SALA 2024 “A Slice of Life” session with VR Ferose , looking absolutely...

"Juneteenth" blends the words June 19th, which was the date in 1865 when the Emancipation Proclamation to end slavery after the end of...

"Seeing someone who looks like me–with my hair, skin tone, and culture–as a multi-dimensional, flawed, beautiful, badass character rather...

Yes, it has been several months since the South Asian Literature and Art Festival (SALA 2023) at Menlo College in Menlo Park, California....

Live theater is one of my great pleasures, and it delights me to discover a new playhouse -- new, at least, to me. City Lights Theater...

In an impassioned introduction providing context for this greatest of stories with countless retellings, Amit Majmudar explains why he...