Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956), German Marxist poet, playwright and theatre practitioner.
Related Books
Paris Commune 150
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Authors
A.G. Noorani
Noorani or Ghafoorbhai, as he was more popularly known, was a polymath and much more. One of the sharpest minds on constitutional law and a prolific writer on a range of subjects, he had a deep sense of justice and was committed to secularism, equity, and progressive ideas. His repertoire of writing spanned domestic politics, jurisprudence as well as international relations, contemporary as well as historical.
Abhishek Majumdar
Abhishek Majumdar is a playwright, director and essayist. Apart from theatre, he has worked in cinema and opera. He is the Artistic Director of Nalanda Arts Studio, Bengaluru, and heads the theatre programme at the New York University, Abu Dhabi. His best-known plays include Kaumudi, Eidgah Ke Jinnat, Muktidham and Pah-la.
Aijaz Ahmad
Aijaz Ahmad (1941-2022) was one of India's best-known Marxist scholars. His best-known books include In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (1992), Lineages of the Present: Ideological and Political Genealogies of Contemporary South Asia (1996), and, from LeftWord Books, Nothing Human is Alien to Me: Aijaz Ahmad in conversation with Vijay Prashad (2020), Iraq, Afghanistan and the Imperialism of Our Time (2004).
Alexandra Kollontai
Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (1872-1952) was a Russian revolutionary, writer, and diplomat. After the October Revolution, she was appointed People's Commissar for Social Welfare. Her diplomatic career began in 1923, when she was appointed Soviet Ambassador to Norway, becoming only the second woman in the world to hold such a high diplomatic post in modern times. She also served as Ambassador to Mexico and Sweden. She was also a member of the Soviet delegation to the League of Nation
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead OM FRS FBA (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He created the philosophical school known as process philosophy,[2] which has been applied in a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology. In his early career Whitehead wrote primarily on mathematics, logic, and physics. He wrote the three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910–1913), with his former student Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica is considered one of the twentieth century's most important works in mathematical logic, and placed 23rd in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library.[3] Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to philosophy of science, and finally to metaphysics. He developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of Western philosophy. Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another.[4] Whitehead's philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the foundational texts of process philosophy. Whitehead's process philosophy argues that "there is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have consequences for the world around us."[4] For this reason, one of the most promising applications of Whitehead's thought in the 21st century has been in the area of ecological civilization and environmental ethics pioneered by John B. Cobb.[5][6]
Antony Dapiran
Antony Dapiran is a Hong Kong-based lawyer, writer and photographer. Antony has written and presented extensively on China and Hong Kong business, politics and culture. A contributing editor at Art Asia Pacific, his writing has also appeared in, among others, the Sydney Morning Herald, South China Morning Post, Nikkei Asia Review, Hong Kong Free Press, News Corp’s Business Spectator, and the LA Review of Books’ China Blog.
Ari Sitas
Ari Sitas is a poet, dramatist and sociologist. He was at the core of the transformation of Labour Studies, of popular and theatre work, and a range of cultural initiatives in South Africa. He has been awarded the highest honour bequeathed to South Africans for his scientific and creative work, the Order of Mapungubwe. He is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Cape Town and a Gutenberg Chair at the University of Strasbourg.
Atilio A. Borón
Atilio A. Borón is a political scientist and sociologist. He has been a professor at the Social Sciences Faculty of the University of Buenos Aires since 1986. He is a senior researcher at CONICET. He is the author of many books including State, Capitalism, and Democracy in Latin America (1991), Empire and Imperialism: A Critical Reading of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2002), Twenty-first Century Socialism: Is There Life After Neoliberalism? (2008), and most recently, América Latina en la Geopolítica del Imperialismo (2012).
Bonnie Garmus,
Garmus is from Seattle.[1] She received her Bachelor’s degree in creative writing/aesthetic studies from University of California, Santa Cruz.[2] She has worked as a copywriter and creative director in the US, and has lived in Switzerland and Colombia. She currently resides in the UK.[1]
Claudia Jones
Claudia Vera Jones was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the United States, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and Black nationalist, adopting the name Jones as "self-protective disinformation".
D. Veeraraghavan
D. Veeraraghavan (1958–2009) studied history in Chennai at R.K.M. Vivekananda College, Presidency College, and Pachaiyappa’s College. In 1982 he joined IIT Madras for his PhD and submitted his thesis, in 1987, on the history of the working-class movement in interwar Chennai. The next year he joined its faculty and taught there until his premature death. He is the author of Chennai Perunagara Thozhirchanga Varalaru (translated into Tamil by S.S. Kannan and Puduvai Gnanam, Alaigal Veliyeettagam, Chennai, 2003). His The Making of the Madras Working Class (LeftWord, 2013) was published posthumously to wide acclaim.
E. Ahmet Tonak
E. Ahmet Tonak is a Research Affiliate at Smith College and teaches at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). From 2018 to 2024, he was an economist at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. His most recent book (written with Sungur Savran) is In the Tracks of Marx’s Capital: Debates in Marxian Political Economy and Lessons for 21st Century Capitalism.
E.M.S. Namboodiripad
E.M.S. NAMBOODIRIPAD (1909–1998) was among India’s pioneering Communist leaders and a Marxist theoretician of enormous stature. He became Chief Minister of Kerala on two occasions, in 1957 at the head of the historic first Communist government, and again in 1967 as head of a seven-party coalition. He was the author of several books and hundreds of articles and essays.
Emiliano López
Emiliano López is the coordinator of the Buenos Aires office of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a CONICET researcher at IdiHCS and a professor of Economics at the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina.
Farid Khan
फ़रीद ख़ाँ पटना में पले-बढ़े हैं। लगभग बचपन से ही पटना इप्टा से जुड़े रहे। पटना विश्वविद्यालय से उर्दू में एमए करने के बाद लखनऊ के भारतेंदु नाट्य अकादमी से नाट्य-कला में स्नातक। कई प्रतिष्ठित पत्र-पत्रिकाओं में कविताएँ प्रकाशित। दो नाटकों का लेखन जिन्हें पटना में इप्टा और नट-मंडप ने मंचित किया। अभी मुंबई में टीवी और फिल्मों में पटकथा लेखक के रूप में सक्रिय।
Fernando Gonzalez Llort
Fernando Gonzalez Llort is one of the ‘Cuban Five’, the revolutionary heroes, unfairly imprisoned in the United States for fighting against terrorist organizations that have operated from US territory against Cuba. In 2017 he was appointed President of Cuba’s Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP). A graduate of International Relations, Fernando served as an internationalist combatant in southern Angola between 1987–89.
Fréderike Geerdink
Fréderike Geerdink is a Dutch journalist who started reporting from Istanbul, Turkey, in 2006. From 2012 to 2015, she was the only foreign journalist based in Diyarbakir, Turkey. She was arrested twice, in January and September 2015, before being deported from Turkey. Her previous book, The Boys are Dead: The Roboski Massacre and the Kurdish Question in Turkey (2015) was nominated for the Brusse Prize. The nomination stated, ‘Fréderike Geerdink is one of those courageous Dutch journalists who do their work in dangerous conflict zones. Her book became a both political and beautiful personal account of the struggle for self determination in Turkish Kurdistan.’ For more on the author, see
G.P. Deshpande
G.P. Deshpande (1938-2013) retired as Professor of Chinese Studies at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the author of The World of Ideas in Modern Marathi: Phule, Vinoba, Savarkar (Tulika, 2009), Talking the Political Culturally and Other Essays (Thema 2009) and Dialectics of Defeat: The Problems of Culture in Postcolonial India (Seagull 2006). He is also a playwright and critic in Marathi. His best-known plays include Uddhwasta Dharmashala (A Man in Dark Times), Andhar Yatra (Passage to Darkness), Chanakya Vishnugupta, Raaste (Roads), and Satyashodhak, a play on the life and times of Jotirao Phule.
Gauhar Raza
Gauhar Raza (born 17 August 1956) is an Indian scientist by profession, and a leading Urdu poet, social activist[1] and documentary filmmaker working to popularize the understanding of science among general public, known for his films like Jung-e-Azadi, on the India's First War of Independence, and Inqilab (2008) on Bhagat Singh.[2][3][4] He was also the honorary director of Jahangirabad Media Institute.
Georg Lukacs
Georg Lukács (1885–1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic. Most scholars consider him to be the founder of the tradition of Western Marxism. He contributed the ideas of reification and class consciousness to Marxist philosophy and theory, and his literary criticism was influential in thinking about realism and about the novel as a literary genre. He served briefly as Hungary's Minister of Culture following the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
Ghanshyam Shah
Ghanshyam Shah is an independent researcher and retired Professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was earlier Director and Professor at the Centre for Social Studies, Surat; Dr. Ambedkar Chair Professor at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie; Fellow-in-Residence at the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study, Wassenaar; and National Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research and the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. The books he has authored/co-authored/edited include Social Inclusion and Education in India (2020), Democracy, Civil Society and Governance (2019), Growth and Development: Which Way is Gujarat Going? (2014), Re-reading ‘Hind Swaraj’: Modernity and Subalterns (2012), Untouchability in Rural India (2006), Caste and Democratic Politics in India (2002, 2004), Public Health and Urban Development (1997) and Social Movements in India (1981, 2004).
Ghassan Kanafani
A political activist, artist, and writer who gave his life for the Palestinian people. He took part in founding the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and is the accomplished author of many short stories, novels, plays, articles, and studies. Kanafani was assassinated in Beirut by the Israeli Mossad in 1972.
Harkishan Singh Surjeet
Harkishan Singh Surjeet (23 March 1916 - 1 August 2008) was a veteran Communist leader, one of the core that formed the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1964 serving as its General Secretary from 1992 to 2005. He was also an important figure in the farmers' struggles in India which he led through the Kisan Sabha. He is the author of 'Land Reforms in India and Happenings in Punjab'.
Harsho Mohan Chattoraj
Harsho Mohan Chattoraj is a graphic novelist and illustrator based in Kolkata. He has been involved in the creation of comics and graphic novels since the turn of the century and has done art for newspapers, advertising agencies and commercial clients in India, USA and the UK. Some of his recent works are Destiny Awakes, Operation Decay, Pagla Sahib’s Grave and Chotushkon.
I I Rubin
Isaac Ilych Rubin was born in Russia in 1886. He was an active participant in the Revolution and afterwards became a professor of marxist economics and a research assistant at the Marx-Engels Institute. He was arrested in 1930, apparently for having a close association with David Riazanov whom Stalin disliked. He was subsequently 'removed from among the living'.
Irfan Habib
Irfan Habib, Professor Emeritus at the Aligarh Muslim University, is the author of The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 15561707 (1963; revised edition 1999), An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (1982), Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist Perception (1995), Medieval India: The Study of a Civilization (2007), Economic History of Medieval India, 12001500 (with collaborators) (2011) and Atlas of Ancient Indian History (with Faiz Habib) (2012). He has co-edited The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. I (1982), UNESCOS History of Humanity, Vols. 4 and 5, and UNESCOS History of Central Asia, Vol. 5. He is the General Editor of the Peoples History of India, and has authored several volumes in the series.
Ismat Chughtai
ISMAT CHUGTAI (1915-1991), one of Urdu's boldest and most outspoken women writers, played an important role in the development of the modern Urdu short story as we know it today. Not only did she make strides in the areas of style and technique, she also led her female contemporaries on a remarkable journey of self-awareness and undaunted creative expression. Women Unlimited and Kali for Women pioneered the translation of much of Chugtai's work in English, making available her most significant writings for the first time. Among these are My Friend, My Enemy: Essays, Reminiscences, Portraits (Kali for Women, 2001), A Chugtai Collection [which includes "The Quilt and Other Stories", "The Heart Breaks Free" and "The Wild One" (Women Unlimited, 2003), The Crooked Line (Women Unlimited, 2003) and A Very strange Man (Women Unlimited, forthcoming).
Jaisingh
जयसिंह फिल्म-समीक्षक और स्तंभकार हैं। उनकी दो किताबें प्रकाशित हैंः भारतीय सिनेमा का सफरनामा और सिनेमा बीच बाजार। उन्होंने विभिन्न विषयों की सौ से अधिक पुस्तकों का संपादन किया है और एक लघु फिल्म का निर्माण और निर्देशन भी। वह भारतीय सूचना सेवा से संबद्ध हैं और ‘रोज़गार समाचार’ में बतौर संपादक कार्यरत हैं।
Jayati Ghosh
Jayati Ghosh is Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has authored and co-edited several books and more than 120 scholarly articles. She is Executive Secretary of International Development Economics Associates (IDEAS - www.networkideas.org) and Trustee of Economic Research Foundation (www.macroscan.org).
Jitheesh P.M.
Jitheesh P.M. holds an M.Phil degree in history from Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, Kerala. He contributes to various Indian and foreign publications such as Frontline, The Hindu, The Caravan and Monthly Review. His writings have been translated into more than half a dozen Indian and foreign languages.
John Smith
John Smith is an independent researcher and writer based in Sheffield, United Kingdom. He did his PhD from the University of Sheffield. He is the author of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis (2016), which received the first Paul A. Baran–Paul M. Sweezy Memorial Award by the Monthly Review Foundation for an original monograph on the political economy of imperialism.
Justice K. Chandru
JUSTICE K. CHANDRU is an advocate and former judge of Madras High Court. He disposed of 96,000 cases during his tenure as a Judge. A 1993 case that Chandru argued as a lawyer is the subject of the hit Tamil film Jai Bhim (2021, dir. T.J. Gnanavel), in which his character is played by the actor Suriya. He writes in Tamil and English, and his previous book was the bestselling Listen to My Case!: When Women Approach the Courts of Tamil Nadu (LeftWord, 2021).
Kanak Lata
कनक लता सामाजिक-राजनीतिक और शिक्षा से संबंधित मुद्दों पर लिखते हुए वंचित समाज से जुड़े प्रश्नों को लगातार उठाती रही हैं। उन्होंने दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय से पीएचडी की उपाधि हासिल की है और कुछ समय तक कॉलेजों में अध्यापन किया है। अज़ीम प्रेमजी फाउंडेशन में बतौर ‘शिक्षक प्रशिक्षक’ उत्तराखंड के कई इलाक़ों में उन्होंने शिक्षकों के प्रशिक्षण कार्यक्रम में सक्रिय रूप से भागीदारी की है | वह स्त्रियों से संबंधित मुद्दे पर लेख के लिए लक्ष्मी देवी अवार्ड से सम्मानित हैं।
Kanwal Dhaliwal
Kanwal Dhaliwal is a painter, sculptor, author, and translator. He did his B.F.A. in Painting (1984) from Government College of Arts, Chandigarh, and an M.A. in Art in Architecture (2002) from the University of East London. He also has a Master’s degree in Russian (1991) from the Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad. He has previously translated Volga se Ganga to Panjabi.
Kohei Saito
Kohei Saito received his Ph.D. from Humboldt University in Berlin. He is currently associate professor of political economy at Osaka City University. He has published articles and reviews on Marx’s ecology, including “The Emergence of Marx’s Critique of Modern Agriculture,” and “Marx’s Ecological Notebooks,” both in Monthly Review. He is working on editing the complete works of Marx and Engels, Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) Volume IV/18, which includes a number of Marx’s natural scientific notebooks.
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Kundan Kumar
Sanjay Kundan is a man of many parts – journalist, celebrated poet and fiction writer, foodie, Patna-lover. We reached out to him and asked him if he'd help us create our Hindi list, and he agreed, making us very happy indeed. He is now Editorial Consultant for Vaam Prakashan, besides pursuing his own literary interests. He's committed to establishing Vaam Prakashan as a cutting-edge imprint of progressive literature in Hindi, and we are excited to have him guide us.
Mahdi Amel
Mahdi Amel (1936–1987; given name Hassan Hamdan) was a professor at the Lebanese University and a central committee member of Lebanon’s Communist Party (LCP). He was a prominent theoretician of colonialism and ‘underdevelopment’ in an Arab context during the era of national liberatio
Malini Bhattacharya
Malini Bhattacharya (b. 1943) retired as Professor of English and Director, School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. She is a well-known activist in the women’s movement, and is President of the All India Democratic Women’s Association. She is a prolific author, translator, playwright, and poet. She was elected to the Lok Sabha as a Communist Party of India (Marxist) candidate from the Jadavpur constituency in 1989, and re-elected in 1991.
Manik Bandyopadhyay
Manik Bandyopadhyay (birth name Prabodh Kumar Bandyopadhyay, 19 May 1908–3 December 1956) is a major figure of twentieth-century Bengali literature. He authored 38 novels and 306 stories. His best-known works include Padma Nadir Majhi (The Boatman on the River Padma, 1936), Putul Nacher Itikatha (The Puppet’s Tale, 1936), Shahartali (Suburbia, 1941), Chatushkone (The Quadrilateral, 1948), Swadhinatar Swad (Taste of Freedom, 1951) and Halud Nadi Sabuj Ban (Yellow River Green Forest, 1956). He was born in Dumka, Santal Parganas. His father was a government official who was transferred all over Bengal, giving young Manik a wide exposure to diverse places, cultures, dialects, and people. He became a member of the Progressive Writers’ Association in the early 1940s, and joined the Communist Party of India in 1944. In ill health and plagued by financial problems, he died at the early age of 48. His unfailing commitment to his creative objective gave him an iconic status as an ‘engaged’ author, a ‘pen-wielding proletarian’, according to the author’s own description.
Manjeet H. Singh
Along with her husband, the late advocate Hardev Singh, Manjeet H. Singh has, over the past four decades, documented and untiringly pursued the cases of the victims and survivors of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. The author is passionate about reading and social work. Her personal library holds over 6,000 books, including rare titles. For over twenty years, she has worked to support marginal farmers in Punjab, many of whom have been adversely impacted by the Green Revolution. She co-founded an organization to assist families of farmers who died by suicide and launched the Punjab Farmers’ Trust to provide low-interest loans to those transitioning to organic farming. She continues to support the widows of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, who live in abject neglect in the ‘Widows’ Ghetto’, Tilak Vihar. She is currently working on a book on the history of Punjab.
MANJEET SINGH
Along with her husband, the late advocate Hardev Singh, Manjeet H. Singh has, over the past four decades, documented and untiringly pursued the cases of the victims and survivors of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom. The author is passionate about reading and social work. Her personal library holds over 6,000 books, including rare titles. For over twenty years, she has worked to support marginal farmers in Punjab, many of whom have been adversely impacted by the Green Revolution. She co-founded an organization to assist families of farmers who died by suicide and launched the Punjab Farmers’ Trust to provide low-interest loans to those transitioning to organic farming. She continues to support the widows of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom, who live in abject neglect in the ‘Widows’ Ghetto’, Tilak Vihar. She is currently working on a book on the history of Punjab.
Manolo De Los Santos
Manolo De Los Santos is the co-executive director of the People’s Forum and is a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He co-edited, most recently, Viviremos: Venezuela vs. Hybrid War (LeftWord Books/1804 Books, 2020) and Comrade of the Revolution: Selected Speeches of Fidel Castro (LeftWord Books/1804 Books, 2021). He is a co-coordinator of the People’s Summit for Democracy.
Maria Berrios
Maria Berrios is a sociologist and independent curator. Apart from collaborative art projects, she writes extensively on art and politics in Latin America. She is the co-founder of the editorial collective vaticanochico and lives and works between Santiago de Chile and London.
Mário de Andrade
Mário de Andrade—a founding member of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola, as well as Cabral’s long-time friend and comrade—follows the arc of Cabral's political thought as it transforms over the course of his life. Presented in its first ever English translation, Amílcar Cabral: A Political Life in Motion is a portrait of a keen and agile leader who knew that to lead the people was to know them.
Maya John
Maya John teaches history at the University of Delhi (India). She is a prominent social activist who has been writing on issues of health, education, labour, gender, social movements, transformative politics and social theory. She has recently co-edited Who Cares? Care Extraction and the Struggles of Indian Health Workers.
Maya Joshi
Maya Joshi is Associate Professor of English Literature at Lady Shri Ram College, but considers it her good fortune to have been exposed from childhood to literatures other than English and subjects other than Literature. Her publications include a critical edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; a co-edited volume on Buddhist philosophy, Pramana: Dharmakirti and the Indian Philosophical Debate (Manohar, 2010); a translation with critical introduction of selections from Rahul Sankrityayan’s Baisvin Sadi for The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, ed. Tarun Saint (2019); and a chapter on Sankrityayan and Ambedkar’s engagements with Buddha and Marx in India and Civilizational Futures: Papers from The Backwaters Collective on Metaphysics and Politics, ed. Vinay Lal (2019). In 2017–18, she was Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, working on an intellectual biography of Rahul Sankrityayan, whom she has enjoyed reading, speaking and writing on for over a decade.
Maya Pandit
Maya Pandit is a poet, translator, teacher developer and an activist who has been involved with the women’s movement in India and alternative theatre movement in Maharashtra for the last three decades. An accomplished translator, she works with Marathi and English and has translated several plays, autobiographies and fictional narratives across the two languages.
Meera Velayudhan
Meera Velayudhan is a policy analyst and former president of Indian Association for Women’s Studies (IAWS). She has been involved in gender studies from its inception in India in early 1980s, her research focusing on strategies of organization of women in historical and contemporary contexts.
N. Ram
N. Ram, a former editor-in-chief and publisher of The Hindu, is a Director of The Hindu Publishing Group. He is the recipient of several awards including the Padma Bhushan, the Sri Lanka Ratna, and the Raja Ram Mohan Roy Award for contributions to journalism. He is the author of, or contributor to, several books, including Riding the Nuclear Tiger for LeftWord (1999). Ram represented Tamil Nadu in the Ranji Trophy cricket tournament.
Naseeruddin Shah
Naseeruddin Shah is a theatre actor and director, founder of the theatre company Motley, and a film actor. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, three National Film Awards, three Filmfare Awards, and an award for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival. He is the author of And Then One Day: A Memoir.
Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o won the Lotus Prize for Literature in 1973. He is the author of such celebrated novels as Weep Not, Child (1964), A Grain of Wheat (1967), Petals of Blood (1977) and Wizard of the Crow (2004). He faced harsh repression for his work, including a year in prison, where he wrote Devil on the Cross on prison-issue toilet paper.
Nitheesh Narayanan
Nitheesh Narayanan is Editor, Student Struggle, and a central secretariat member of SFI. He is a PhD scholar at the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, JNU, and a researcher at Tricontinental India Research. He is co-editor of two books, The 1921 Uprising in Malabar: A Collection of Communist Writings (LeftWord, 2022) and Ashayasamaranngalude Lokam (Chintha Publishers), and co-translator of the Malayalam edition of Aijaz Ahmad and Vijay Prashad, Nothing Human is Alien to Me (Chintha Publishers).
Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor (emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Laureate Professor of Linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair in the Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona. A world-renowned linguist and political activist, he is the author of numerous books, including On Language, Understanding Power (edited by Peter R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel), American Power and the New Mandarins, For Reasons of State, Problems of Knowledge and Freedom, Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship, Towards a New Cold War, The Essential Chomsky(edited by Anthony Arnove), On Anarchism, The Chomsky–Foucault Debate (with Michel Foucault). He lives in Tucson, Arizona.
OlÍvia Carolino Pires
OlÍvia Carolino Pires works for the federal government in Brazil. She co-ordinates the Brazil Popular Project and the National Directorate of the Popular Brazil Movement. Olivia teaches at the Florestan Fernandes National School and the Paulo Freire National School. She was the research coordinator at the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research from 2019 to 2023.
Orijit Sen
Orijit Sen, born in 1963, is an Indian graphic artist, muralist, and designer. In 1990, he co-founded People Tree — a collaborative studio and store for artists, designers and craftspeople. Along with his wife and fellow designer Gurpreet Sidhu, he continues to lead People Tree’s design studio — developing in-house projects as well as partnerships with organisations working in the arts and social sectors. Comics and visual storytelling have been an important strand in his diverse set of practices as a visual artist. His book River Of Stories came out in 1994, and is considered to be India’s first graphic novel in English. He is also co-founder of the Pao Collective of comics artists, and chief editor of Comixense, a comics quarterly for young readers. Orijit has served as Mario Miranda Chair Visiting Professor at Goa University, where he initiated an experimental arts and research project entitled the ‘Mapping Mapusa Market Project’, which involved students, educationists and artists. He was also Visiting Professor at the Visual Arts Department of Ashoka University. His work has been extensively published, exhibited and installed in India as well as internationally.
P. Sainath
Palagummi Sainath (born 1957), one of India’s best-known journalists, is the founding editor of People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI). He was The Hindu’s Rural Affairs Editor till 2014. Previously, he worked at Blitz and United News of India. He has lectured and taught at various institutions, including the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. Sainath is the author of the bestselling Everybody Loves a Good Drought. He is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including, in 2007, the Ramon Magsaysay Award. Two documentary films on his work, Nero’s Guests and A Tribe of his Own, have received over 20 international awards.
Peter Mertens
Peter Mertens is a leader of the Workers’ Party of Belgium. He has served as a member of the Chamber of Representatives since 2019, and as a Municipal Councillor in Antwerp since 2013. He is the author of They Have Forgotten Us: The Working Class, Care and the Looming Crisis (LeftWord 2021).
Pindiga Ambedkar
Pindiga Ambedkar works at Tricontinental Research. He completed his MA in Development Studies from TISS, Mumbai (2006-2008). He was the vice president of the TISS students’ union during 2007-2008. He also did his MPhil in Sociology from CSSS, JNU(2009-2011). His research interests are Sociology of Education and Labour Issues. He is associated with Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch, Delhi State.
Prabhat Patnaik
Prabhat Patnaik retired as Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the author of Time, Inflation and Growth (1988), Economics and Egalitarianism (1991), Whatever Happened to Imperialism and other essays (1995), Accumulation and Stability under Capitalism (1997), The Retreat to Unfreedom (2003), The Value of Money (2008) and Re-Envisioning Socialism (2011). He is the Editor of the journal Social Scientist.
Prabhat Singh
प्रभात सिंह स्वभाव से फ़ोटोग्राफ़र हैं, यों अख़बारनवीस, लेखक और अनुवादक भी हैं। थारू जनजाति पर एक मोनोग्राफ़, कुंभ के मेले पर एक, और अख़बारनवीसी पर दो किताबें छपी हैं। मार्क टुली के कहानी संग्रह और रस्किन बॉन्ड की आत्मकथा का हिंदी में अनुवाद किया है। अरसे तक अमर उजाला के संपादक रहे। इन दिनों संवाद न्यूज़ के संपादक हैं।
Prabir Purkayastha
Prabir Purkayastha is an engineer and a science activist in the power, telecom and software sectors. He is a founding member of the Delhi Science Forum. He is the author of Knowledge as Commons: Towards Inclusive Science and Technology (LeftWord 2023) and co-author, along with Vijay Prashad, of Enron Blowout: Corporate Capitalism and Theft of the Global Commons (LeftWord 2002), and along with Ninan Koshy, M.K. Bhadrakumar, of Uncle Sam’s Nuclear Cabin (LeftWord 2007). He is co-editor with Indranil and Richa Chintan of Political Journeys in Health: Essays by and for Amit Sengupta (LeftWord 2021). He is the founder of Newsclick.in.
Prakash Karat
Prakash Karat is a member of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He served as General Secretary of the party from 2005 to 2015. He is the author of Language and Nationality Politics in India (1972) and Subordinate Ally: The Nuclear Deal and India-US Strategic Relations (LeftWord 2008), and editor of A World to Win—Essays on the Communist Manifesto (LeftWord 1999) and Across Time and Continents: A Tribute to Victor Kiernan (LeftWord 2003). He is Managing Director of Naya Rasta Publishers Private Limited, of which LeftWord Books is an imprint.
R. Ramakumar
R. Ramakumar is an economist, with a Ph.D. from the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. His areas of work are agricultural economics, agrarian studies and rural development. He is presently Associate Professor at the School of Social Sciences at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
Rahul Sankrityayan
Rahul Sankrityayan (1893–1963) was an Indian polymath who is often remembered as the father of Hindi travel writing. He was also known for his role in the revival of Buddhism in India, as co-founder of the Bihar unit of the Communist Party, and a pioneering explorer-traveller. His choice of Hindi for the bulk of his writing marks him as a contributor to a popular progressive intellectual discourse in that language. Apart from his iconic travelogues that record journeys into remote Himalayan regions and across Asia and Europe, he wrote on travel (Ghumakkar Shastr), made significant contributions to history (including the Sahitya Akademi Award winning Madhya Asia ka Itihas), philosophy (Darshan Digdarshan), memoir-writing (Meri Jeevan-Yatra, Mere Asahyog ke Saathi), polemics (Bhago Nahin Duniya ko Badlo, Tumhari Kshaya), biography (of travellers, thinkers, social reformers, political leaders), drama (Bhojpuri), translation (of Tajik novels, as well as The Communist Manifesto), lexicography, critical commentary on and emendation of rare Buddhist philosophical texts recovered from Tibet, and diverse fiction, mostly historical. He was imprisoned for his anti-colonial activism for about three years by the British. In 1963, he was conferred the Padma Bhushan.
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Randhir Singh
Randhir Singh, a distinguished teacher and former Professor of Political Theory, University of Delhi, is the author of Reason, Revolution and Political Theory; Five Lectures in Marxist Mode; Marxism, Socialism, Indian Politics – A View from the Left; Contemporary Ecological Crisis – A Marxist View; Indian Politics Today – An Argument for Socialism-Oriented Path of Development and Struggle for Socialism – Some Issues. He has been associated with the communist movement since 1939. Of his writings, Harry Magdoff, editor, Monthly Review, has said: 'I admire the solidity of your analysis as well as the firmness of your commitment.'
Revati Laul
Revati Laul is an independent journalist and film-maker. She is the author of The Anatomy of Hate (2018). The book is the first-ever account of the perpetrators of the 2002 pogrom against Muslims that took place in the state of Gujarat in India. Revati has worked for NDTV and Tehelka, and also written for publications like The Quint, Scroll.in and The Hindustan Times. She is based in New Delhi.
Romila Thapar
Romila Thapar (born 30 November 1931) is a distinguished Indian historian whose principal area of study is ancient India. She is the author of numerous substantial books including the popular classic, A History of India, and is currently Professor Emerita at Jawaharlal Nehru University(JNU) in New Delhi. After graduating from Panjab University, Thapar earned her doctorate under A.L. Basham at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London in 1958. She was a reader in Ancient Indian History at Kurukshetra University between 1961 and 1962 and held the same position at Delhi University between 1963 and 1970. Later, she worked as Professor of Ancient Indian History at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she is now Professor Emerita. Thapar's major works are Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, Recent Perspectives of Early Indian History (ed.), A History of India Volume One, and Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300.
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg (5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and revolutionary socialist of Polish-Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen. She was, successively, a member of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL), the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In 1915, after the SPD supported German involvement in World War I, she and Karl Liebknecht co-founded the anti-war Spartakusbund ("Spartacus League"), which eventually became the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). During the German Revolution, she co-founded the newspaper Die Rote Fahne ("The Red Flag"), the central organ of the Spartacist movement. She considered the Spartacist uprising of January 1919 a blunder, but supported it as events unfolded. With the crushing of the revolt by Friedrich Ebert's social democratic government and by the Freikorps (World War I veterans who banded together into right-wing paramilitary groups), Freikorps troops captured Luxemburg, Liebknecht and some of their supporters. Luxemburg was shot and her body thrown in the Landwehr Canal in Berlin.
Rossen Djagalov
Rossen Djagalov is an assistant professor of Russian at New York University, a research fellow of the Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities, HSE , Moscow, and a member of the editorial collective of LeftEast. His book From Internationalism to Postcolonialism: Literature and Cinema between the Second and the Third World is published by McGill-Queens University Press.
Saitya Brata Das
Saitya Brata Das teaches at the Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is associated with the UFR Philosophie, University de Strasbourg, France, and with Maison des Sciences de L'Homme, Paris, where he was Post Doctorate fellow during 2006-2007. His first book-length study called The Promise of Time: Towards a Phenomenology of Promise was published by Indian Institute of Advanced Study.
Sanjay Kundan
1969 में पटना में जन्म। पटना विश्वविद्यालय से हिंदी साहित्य में एमए। कागज के प्रदेश में, चुप्पी का शोर, योजनाओं का शहर, तनी हुई रस्सी पर उनके कविता संग्रह हैं, जबकि बॉस की पार्टी, श्यामलाल का अकेलापन कहानी संग्रह और टूटने के बाद तथा तीन ताल उपन्यास। कुछ लघु और नुक्कड़ नाटकों का भी लेखन। आवर हिस्ट्री, देयर हिस्ट्री, हूज हिस्ट्री (रोमिला थापर), एनिमल फार्म (जॉर्ज ऑरवेल), लेटर्स ऑन सेज़ां (रिल्के), पैशन इंडिया (जेवियर मोरो) और वॉशिंगटन बुलेट्स (विजय प्रशाद) का हिंदी में अनुवाद। भारतभूषण अग्रवाल पुरस्कार और हेमंत स्मृति सम्मान सहित अनेक पुरस्कारों से सम्मानित। वाम प्रकाशन में संपादक।
Satarupa Chakraborty
Satarupa Chakraborty is a researcher at Tricontinental Research. She is also a PhD candidate in the Center for Philosophy at JNU. Satarupa is currently a member of the state committee of All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) Delhi. She was the general secretary of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union during 2016-2017. She completed her Masters from University of Hyderabad in 2012, and earned an MPhil degree in Philosophy from JNU in 2015.
Sevim Dagdelen
Sevim Dagdelen is since 2005 member of the German parliament, the Bundestag. She is member in the Committee on Foreign Affairs and foreign policy spokesperson for the party Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Justice (BSW) in the German Bundestag. Dagdelen is member of the German-Chinese, the German-Indian and the German-US Parliamentary Friendship Groups. She is a leading expert in Germany on security and foreign policy, and a long-standing member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.
Sudhanva Deshpande
Sudhanva Deshpande is a theatre director and actor. He joined Jana Natya Manch in 1987, and has acted in over 4,000 performances of over 80 plays. His articles and essays have appeared in The Drama Review, The Hindu, Frontline, Seminar, Economic and Political Weekly, Udbhavna, Samaj Prabodhan Patrika, among others. He has co-directed two films on the theatre legend Habib Tanvir and his company Naya Theatre. He is the editor of Theatre of the Streets: The Jana Natya Manch Experience (Janam 2007), and co-editor of Our Stage: Pleasures and Perils of Theatre Practice in India (Tulika 2008). He has held teaching positions at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Since 1998, he has been Managing Editor, LeftWord Books. He cycles around town.
Sumangala Damodaran
Sumangala Damodaran, formerly at Ambedkar University Delhi, works in the areas of Development Studies and Popular Music Studies. She is also a musician and composer who has archived and written about Indian resistance music traditions, and done collaborative performative and scholarly work on music with poets, musicians and academics from South Africa, China, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
Suraj Yengde
Suraj Yengde is a W.E.B. Du Bois Fellow at Harvard University. His prior appointments were Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, a non-resident fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, and was part of the founding team of the Initiative for Institutional Anti-Racism and Accountability (IARA) at Harvard University. Dr. Suraj Yengde is also a DPhil candidate at the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford. Originally from Nanded, India, he is the author of Caste Matters (2019), and co-author, with Anand Teltumbde, of The Radical in Ambedkar: Critical Reflections (2018).
T. Jayaraman
T. Jayaraman is currently Professor and Chairperson, Centre for Science, Technology and Society, School of Habitat Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Trained as a theoretical physicist and having worked for several years in that discipline, he has subsequently shifted his academic interests to questions that broadly relate to science and society. His current particular interests include climate change and climate policy, science and technology policy in India including nuclear policy and particular aspects of the philosophy and history of science and technology, with special reference to the Indian context.
T.M. Thomas Isaac
T.M. Thomas Isaac is Distinguished Honorary Fellow at the Gulati Institute of Finance and Taxation, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He served as Minister of Finance of Kerala for two terms, from 2006 to 2011, and from 2016 to 2021. Previously, during his tenure as a member of the Kerala State Planning Board, he was in charge of the People’s Plan Campaign. He is the author of numerous books in Malayalam and English.
Teesta Setalvad
Teesta Setalvad is a human rights activist and journalist. She is secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace, an organization that has fought to get justice for the victims of the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat in 2002. Along with fellow journalist and husband Javed Anand, she is co-founder and co-editor of Communalism Combat and the website Sabrang. LeftWord published her memoirs Footsoldier of the Constitution, in 2017.
Urmila Bhirdikar
Urmila Bhirdikar teaches sociology in Shiv Nadar University. She translates between Marathi, Hindi and English. They include the translation of the play Mahapoor by Satish Alekar (The Deluge, in Collected Plays of Satish Alekar, OUP, 2009) and with Amlan Dasgupta, translation and critical introduction to My Life by Sangit Samrat Khansahab Alladiya Khan (Thema, 2001).
Utsa Patnaik
UTSA PATNAIK retired as Professor of Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has written extensively on political economy, capitalism and the agrarian question. She is the author of The Long Transition: Essays on Political Economy (1999), and The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays (2007), and has edited two volumes of The Agrarian Question in Marx and his Successors for LeftWord Books.
Victor Figueroa Clark
Dr Victor Figueroa Clark is scholar of Latin American history and politics specialising in Chile. He has written widely on Latin American events, is a former lecturer at the LSE, and a contributing editor at Alborada.net, a British media site covering Latin America.
Victor Gordon Kiernan
Victor Gordon Kiernan (1913–2009) was a British Marxist historian. He was part of the famous Communist Party Historians’ Group of the 1940s that included E.P. Thompson, Christopher Hill, Rodney Hilton and others. He was described by Hill as ‘one of the most versatile of British historians’.
VIDYUN SABHANEY
Vidyun Sabhaney is a writer and illustrator of graphic narratives and comics. Her work has been published by a number of publishers and magazines. She is the co-editor of First Hand, and the editor of First Hand 2, both non-fiction and research-based comics anthologies. She is a co-editor of Drawing Resistance, a bilingual publication with two issues. She also started Captain Bijli Comics, an independent comics publishing platform which created Mice Will Be Mice, DOGS! An Anthology, and the First Hand books (in collaboration with Yoda Press & People Tree). Her latest independent work is a comic on the women of the farmer’s movement titled Haq.
Vijay Prashad
Vijay Prashad is director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, editor at LeftWord Books, and chief correspondent for Globetrotter Independent Media Institute. He is the author of forty books, including Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of a Dalit Community, Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. The Darker Nations won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize. He lives in Santiago, Chile.
Wang Chaohua
Wang Chaohua is a researcher who has a doctorate in modern Chinese literature and culture from the University of California, Los Angeles. She writes regularly on Chinese politics and has edited a collection of essays, One China, Many Paths (Verso, 2003). She lives in Los Angeles.
Wildan Sena Utama
Wildan Sena Utama is a Lecturer at the Department of History, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. A Vision for the Future: An Intellectual History of the 1955 Bandung Conference, was originally published as Konferensi Asia-Afrika 1955: Asal Usul Intelektual dan Warisannya Bagi Gerakan Global Antiimperialisme, Jakarta: Marjin Kiri, 2017.
अनूप मणि त्रिपाठी
अनूप मणि त्रिपाठी का जन्म उत्तर प्रदेश के महाराजगंज ज़िले के धानी नामक गांव में हुआ। अब तक दो व्यंग्य संग्रह शोरूम में जननायक और अस मानुष की जात प्रकाशित। तहलका पत्रिका में ‘तहलका फुल्का’ नामक व्यंग्य स्तंभ बेहद चर्चित रहा। उन्हें अंजमुन नवलेखन पुरस्कार, प्रथम के पी सक्सेना युवा सम्मान, हरिशंकर परसाई स्मृति इप्टा व्यंग्य सम्मान और सफ़दर हाश्मी शब्द शिल्पी सम्मान प्राप्त हुए हैं। कुछ व्यंग्य रचनाओं पर नुक्कड़ नाटक खेले गये। एक कहानी पर टेली फिल्म का निर्माण। मासिक पत्रिका जनचुनौती में ‘दरबार’ नाम से व्यंग्य स्तंभ जारी। फिलहाल स्वतंत्र लेखन।
विष्णु नागर
विष्णु नागर जाने-माने कवि, कथाकार और व्यंग्यकार हैं। मैं फिर कहता हूँ चिड़िया, तालाब में डूबी छह लड़कियाँ और संसार बदल जाएगा इनके प्रमुख कविता संग्रह हैं जबकि ईश्वर की कहानियाँ, आख्यान, रात-दिन, बच्चा और गेंद इनके प्रमुख कहानी संग्रह। व्यंग्य के कई संग्रह हैं जिनमें प्रमुख हैं: जीव-जंतु पुराण, घोड़ा और घास, राष्ट्रीय नाक, छोटा सा ब्रेक तथा सदी का सबसे बड़ा ड्रामेबाज। नवभारत टाइम्स, हिंदुस्तान, कादंबिनी, नई दुनिया में लंबे समय तक प्रमुख पदों पर कार्य करने के बाद फिलहाल स्वतंत्र लेखन।