A LIVELY AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING COLLECTION OF WRITINGS ABOUT LIFE AND LITERATURE 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. The essays in this volume constantly remind us that Deshpande is first and foremost a reader and a listener actively and compassionately engaged in dialogue with others. Subversions invites its readers to enter that fascinating dialogue.